


Dark Things Grew

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Caves, Discussions of Arson, Established Relationship, F/F, Faceless, Family, Friendship, Implied Medical Experimentation, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Shock, Monsters, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Survival Horror, Traps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:14:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: "No, Leo thought. Ignoring the fact no one in the family besides their father had ever gone there with any sort of frequency, there was nothing strictly “bad” about spending three nights in their family’s old vacation home. But given that it was a caveat required of all of the siblings—including young Elise, so thank goodness it was still summer vacation—to spend three nights in the house or else forfeit their portion of the inheritance, it felt right to assume there was some kind of trick to this that Leo hadn’t figured out yet."Garon is dead and if his children absolutelymustsort out his affairs via mysterious stipulations in his will, they figure they might as well take their significant others with them and make a vacation out of it. With Garon's recent death and the lack of cell service abound, everyone already knows they're in for a stressful time. They're trying to make the most of it.Even if "making the most of it" means simply surviving a night straight out of a horror movie.Or, more simply put:The one where Leo was right from the start.





	1. And So It Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always said I would write a horror FE AU one day, and here I am! Finally! Only a liar half the time! Haha, jk. Thank you to all my friends and tumblr followers who helped to support me while I wrote this! It took a while, but here we are! Thanks! I couldn't have done it without you!
> 
> Title is a quote from The Vanishing of Ethan Carter: "Beneath all that rot, dark things grew."
> 
> NOTE: The full version of this fic is sitting on my computer! I will post the other half of this sometime next week when I return from out of town and finish editing it, as I won't have my computer while I'm gone. So don't worry about waiting on me to write more. Everything is complete and I just need to post it as the second chapter when it's ready.
> 
> If you've read any of my horror fics before (or any fics where you know I'm weak of heart), you might suspect what you're in for already. That said! If you want more specific content warnings for this chapter (vaguely spoilery but basically nothing that isn't in the tags already), hit that link and scroll all the way down to the bottom notes! Your safety when reading comes first!
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Inigo, smiling a little awkwardly, said with some humor, “He can’t have seriously written that.”

He looked like he couldn’t quite believe it. _Leo_ couldn’t quite believe it, and he’d read the will with his own two eyes.

“No,” Leo said flatly, making the lack of amusement plain on his face. “I assure you, that’s what it says.”

Inigo looked to Xander for confirmation. Xander looked back with the same seriousness Leo sported.

“Oh,” Inigo said. Leo visibly saw the gears turning in his head. Then Inigo slapped a smile on his face and said, “Okay. I mean. That’s not so bad, is it?”

No, Leo thought. Ignoring the fact no one in the family besides their father had ever gone there with any sort of frequency, there was nothing strictly “bad” about spending three nights in their family’s old vacation home. But given that it was a caveat required of _all_ of the siblings—including young Elise, so thank goodness it was still summer vacation—to spend three nights in the house or else forfeit their portion of the inheritance, it felt right to assume there was some kind of trick to this that Leo hadn’t figured out yet.

Xander seemed to be of much of the same mindset. He grunted in response to Inigo’s questioning. “We shall see.”

The attorney had read the will that morning, and only half of their group had yet returned home. Leo and Xander were still wearing their suits, though Xander had opened one or two extra buttons on his dress shirt now that they weren’t at the office. Leo had lost the tie somewhere in the doorway. Elise was upstairs changing into something more comfortable, as were Niles and Beruka, but Corrin and Camilla had gone to pick up Severa on their way home. Owain hadn’t yet arrived, but his messages to Leo’s phone assured him that he was on his way.

Inigo had only arrived a few moments ago, and so he was the first of those outside the family or their father’s attorney to be informed of this strange post-mortem request. Standing in living room, Inigo seemed to be taking it mostly well. He voiced a little less audible disapproval than Leo had in the attorney’s office, at least.

Granted, that was probably because it wasn’t _his_ inheritance on the line. Or maybe it would be, one day via technicality, if his relationship with Xander continued on its path. Not that Leo or his family particularly needed the money or the headache selling all of their late father’s properties would be. But it was what it was, and nobody could deny the relief cleaning up the last of their father’s worldly possessions would bring. Possibly closure too. There would be less open-ended memories that way. Leo wanted this over and done with as much as any of them.

There was a strange feeling in his chest that had been sitting there ever since the funeral a few days before—one that not even Owain and Niles’s presence at his side had managed to cure.

Leo had loved his father, once. Arguably, he still did. He didn’t feel the same way about the man as he had his late mother, who had attempted to use him like a pawn instead of a person in her bid for Garon’s attention, but he had felt _something_ , once upon a time. That something had begun to curdle and decline with every fresh step his father had taken into his paranoia and distain for his children in turn.

But there had been something, once, and part of Leo’s heart had felt displaced since his father’s death. He suspected Xander and Camilla may have felt something similar, though he hadn’t asked yet. Corrin and Elise were more heartfelt in their grief, but perhaps that was a good thing. Their ability to name to what they were feeling may have been yet another advantage they held over Leo’s head.

He came back to himself at the sound of Inigo and Xander’s talking.

“You don’t have to,” Xander was saying. “It’s only three days—”

“No, no,” Inigo reassured him. “Of course I’d want to. I wasn’t sure if you’d like the opportunity to spend the time alone with your family instead, but of course I can come.”

“If you want,” Xander said.

“If it’s alright with _you_ ,” Inigo said.

It was then that the front door swung open and Owain awkwardly stumbled in, probably because he remembered at the last second that the mood in the house was still somber and he couldn’t just come bounding in with a yell like he normally did.

“Leo!” Owain said, saving Leo from having to listen to Xander and Inigo dance around each other’s feelings any longer. “What’s this unusual addendum in the will that you mysteriously mentioned and then refused to answer in-depth before I arrived in person?”

Trust Owain to choose the wordiest, most dramatic way to phrase things.

Instead of answering directly, Leo kissed Owain on his cheek and said, “What are your plans for the next week?”

Owain grabbed his hand.

“I had planned on assisting you in whatever way you need of me,” he reminded Leo.

Leo nodded. “In that case, you and Niles will be accompanying us to my father’s abandoned villa for three nights.”

He’d specifically thrown in the word “abandoned” to spark Owain’s interest. Leo hoped he could distract himself in turn.

Owain squeezed Leo’s hand again. Leo was pretty sure he already knew what Owain was thinking. Owain’s glance up and down Leo’s face lasted only a split second, but that was apparently all he needed to read Leo’s expression like an open book.

In a brighter tone, Owain said, “It sounds like an adventure!”

“If you believe as much,” Leo said mildly, already imagining what unwanted secrets they might uncover after spending three days in an empty house that a much younger Garon had frequented in his more womanizing years.

“We can explore the land!” Owain said, which was much more Owain’s idea of adventure. For Leo’s benefit, he added, “We could spend our lackadaisical days in revelry and relaxation!’

Leo made a noise that could have been seen as encouragement. He allowed Owain to hook his chin over Leo’s shoulder, pressing his nose against Leo’s cheek.

Leaning over the stairway banister, Niles drawled, “Or we could burn it all to the ground.”

It was, Leo considered, food for thought.

 

 

 

“So this is it,” Severa said as Camilla rolled to a stop outside the house, Xander’s car parking somewhere off to their right. The driveway was large and looping, and while Camilla and Xander both came to a stop outside what appeared to be a garage, they could have essentially parked anywhere. They weren’t exactly cramped for space.

She wanted to say the place didn’t look like much. But that would have been a lie.

The house wasn’t quite a mansion, but it was large. Very large. It looked older than Camilla’s family home, Severa thought, judging by the peeling paint of the front porch pillars and the way the grass poked through the slats of the front steps. But that may have been a result of lack of upkeep rather than age. The architecture wasn’t very modern, at least.

It was, Severa noted, the kind of building that _loomed_ rather than sat peacefully. She wondered what it looked like inside.

“This is it,” Camilla agreed. She smiled, but something about it looked strained around the edges. Severa thought about reaching over the divider and taking Camilla’s hand for support, but she knew Camilla didn’t want Corrin or Elise asking unwanted questions about why she felt uncomfortable, so Severa refrained.

She looked to the backseat instead. Beruka, sitting like a statue between Corrin and Elise, returned her gaze and said nothing.

“I don’t remember ever coming here before,” Corrin said, craning their neck curiously to get a proper look at the property. Severa followed their gaze and saw a gazebo somewhere off in the distance. She automatically assumed that it was full of wasps.

Camilla said, “I don’t think you have.”

She pulled the keys out of the ignition and looked at Corrin in the rearview mirror. “I barely remember this place at all. Father stopped taking us after a time. I think he still came out from time to time on his own, though.”

Corrin nodded, looking contemplative. Severa itched to get out of the car already. Across the yard, Owain and Niles were already climbing out of Xander’s smaller car. Owain stretched like it had been five years since he’d had the chance to stand rather than five hours.

Elise, apparently, was just as eager. Her door swung open, letting a blast of humid air into the carefully airconditioned car. Elise hopped out onto the gravel with an excited, “Wow! This place is so—”

“Creepy,” Severa finished under her breath, missing the tail end of Elise’s excited chatter.

She didn’t miss the glance Camilla sent her way, however. Severa ducked her head in embarrassment. She was supposed to be helping her girlfriend feel better about the recent death of her father, not adding to the burden.

Severa quickly checked her phone to give her something to do and found the service bar flickering between _NO SERVICE_ and one bar. She barely stopped herself from scowling too obviously.

Thankfully, Corrin, who was carefully stepping out of their side of the car, hadn’t seemed to have heard. Severa’s “creepy” comment. Severa suspected Beruka might have since Beruka never really missed anything, but she thankfully said nothing.

“I’ll get the luggage,” Severa suggested. She climbed out of the passenger seat and headed towards the trunk.

Severa’s suitcase was easily the largest of the lot, but with Camilla’s being only marginally smaller, she didn’t feel too bad about the excessive size. She needed a lot of things, Severa mentally justified. Hair products, makeup, a blow dryer, changes of clothes for whatever activities they might have needed to do over the next three days—they all took up a lot of space. Besides, the group would thank her when it turned out the electricity was out and she was the only one with spare batteries and books to entertain them throughout the dragging days.

Alright, so she hadn’t known quite what to expect when Camilla had asked her to accompany them to her family’s creepy villa that nobody except for Camilla’s dad, who had gone a bit crazy before his death—Severa’s words, not Camilla’s, though they were still true—had visited in years. So sue her.

It was possible she had overpacked, but judging from the knee-high level of mold that dotted the outside of the house, Severa thought the gloves she had stuffed in the outside pocket would be necessary at the very least. It was lucky that she’d thought to save them a trip into town. Who knew what else she had brought that they’d need soon?

Beruka’s bag was easily the smallest and most utilitarian of the bunch, so Severa threw Beruka’s small duffle bag on top of her own roller suitcase. She could carry two bags with one hand like that. Nice.

Severa was digging around the trunk to pull out Camilla’s larger roller bag when Beruka rounded the side of the car.

“I can carry that,” Beruka said emotionlessly. To anyone else she would have sounded brisk, but Severa had known her long enough to know that was her girlfriend’s way of offering to help rather than shunning her completely. So she let Beruka take the other bag.

“Elise!” Camilla called out, her boots crunching in the driveway gravel. “Don’t forget your suitcase! You can unpack first and explore later!”

A blonde head bobbed in the distance. “Oops! Coming!”

The grass was tall enough that it had nearly swallowed Elise whole. Severa thought about the snakes that were probably hidden just out of sight and made the executive decision to avoid stepping anywhere off the clear gravel driveway.

Corrin appeared over Beruka’s shoulder, smiling gently. “Thanks so much for the help. But I should carry my own bag. I feel bad making you two carry everything.”

“It’s fine,” Beruka said.

Severa looked up at the house. It wasn’t _quite_ falling apart, but there was a look about it Severa didn’t like. It may have been the face they were all but forced to spend the night there. It may have been the dark pine trees that lined that lined the property and made the house feel so isolated. It may have been the fact the nearest neighbor was miles away and the nearest town even farther. In any case, the whole thing put a bad taste in Severa’s mouth.

But she was here to support Camilla no matter what. So she’d suck it up.

Somewhere near Xander’s car, she heard Owain’s excited ramblings and Niles’s low teasing, followed by Leo’s distinctive sigh. Xander and Inigo floated somewhere in her periphery, handling their own luggage.

“Is something wrong?” Beruka asked, suddenly at her shoulder.

Severa blinked. Corrin was looking at her curiously.

“It’s nothing,” Severa said, looking up at the house as Elise skipped by. “Let’s just get this over with.”

 

 

 

Before Inigo even made it to the house, he heard Severa shout, “We call dibs on the biggest downstairs bedroom!”

“We?” Inigo echoed before he made the connection that there could have been no other “we” Severa would want to room with besides herself, Camilla, and Beruka. He climbed the somewhat loose front steps and realized why Severa had called dibs almost immediately.

A rather steep staircase stood immediately at the entrance, no doubt leading to more bedrooms. Inigo caught sight of Beruka disappearing into what appeared to be some kind of living room straight ahead fo the front door. If he wasn’t mistaken, a hint of a piano peeked around the corner as well. He made a note of that for later.

“I seem to recall there being only one downstairs bedroom,” Xander noted as he came up behind Inigo, carrying his own luggage. “The master bedroom, I believe.”

Severa had been among the first in the house, despite her heavy looking suitcase. No doubt she had decided to take the easiest route to avoid lugging her bag up the steep stairs. Inigo was already jealous he hadn’t thought to do the same thing.

Plus, the thought of him and Xander sharing the master bedroom was pretty tempting as well.

Ah, well. Inigo didn’t blame her. The staircase was thankfully carpeted, so there would be no slipping on polished wood and falling to his death this evening, but still. Thankfully Inigo didn’t mind a little work before a little downtime. So long as there was downtime right after, that was.

He was once again reminded of the reason they were here in the first place and frowned. _Then_ he remembered the fact that nobody had been here in years, possibly—or at least months—and shuddered at the thought of the cobwebs that may have awaited him upstairs. Unpacking wasn’t a problem, Inigo decided. Bugs definitely might have been.

To the right of the front doorway was a kitchen, and in it Inigo watched Corrin run a finger along the dusty counter. Inigo mentally squirmed. He didn’t want to imagine what the bedrooms were like.

“That just leaves the upstairs then,” Inigo said to Xander, forcing some brightness into his tone and trying his best to forget about any possible bugs.

Despite the sunny day and the easy drive, Xander hadn’t looked very happy since they had left the house. Inigo knew Xander had been been apprehensive about the trip at best, and he wanted Xander feel as at comfortable as he could for the remainder of their trip. As comfortable as a man could be after the death of his estranged father, that was.

Inigo continued, “Come on, we can leave our luggage upstairs and then come back for the groceries.”

They had picked up a few easy meals at a small grocery store to tide them over for the next few days before arriving.

Xander’s lips quirked upward into something that vaguely resembled a smile.

“Taking charge, are we?” he asked.

Inigo winked. “Only when you ask for it.” He glanced back to the kitchen, noting Corrin had disappeared somewhere further in. “Corrin, is the fridge working?”

Enough late afternoon light shone through the windows that no one had turned the lights on to test the electricity yet. Inigo hoped the electricity still worked. The sunlight also highlighted the thick cloud of dust in the air. He was also suddenly glad he had outgrown his childhood asthma.

He heard the telltale sticky sound of a refrigerator opening.

“It looks like it!” Corrin called back.

“Great!” Inigo beamed. “We’re off to a good start then. Let’s grab the best bedroom upstairs before Owain and the others steal that too.”

“I heard that!” Owain yelled from outside.

Inigo’s cheeky grin grew. Xander followed him up the stairs. The stairs creaked underfoot as they ascended.

What seemed to be an endless row of doors lined either side of the hall at the top of the landing. Inigo chose the second door from the right on a whim and found an average sized bedroom waiting for them on the other side. The room’s style resembled something he could imagine to be his grandparent’s spare bedroom, but that seemed par for the course with the rest of the house. With a queen-sized bed pushed against the wall and a thin wardrobe standing directly across from it, the bedroom was otherwise mostly bare. But it would do.

“This looks pretty good, right?” Inigo said, throwing his duffel bag onto the far side of the bed. He turned towards Xander, who still hung in the doorway. “Unless you’d like to look around some more? Now’s the time if we want to get first pick up here.”

After a beat, Xander shook his head.

“No, this is fine,” he said. “We won’t be here for very long, after all.”

Inigo sat on the edge of the somewhat stiff mattress and patted the scratchy sheets invitingly. “Let’s sit down for a second.”

Looking out of place in the old house, Xander walked across the room, dropped his own duffel bag by his feet, and sat next to Inigo. He added no more commentary about needing to get the groceries or how they had other matters to settle before they relaxed like he usually would have, so Inigo figured he was truly out of it.

“Hey,” Inigo said softly, hooking his arm with Xander’s and intertwining their fingers as he joined Inigo on the bed. “What’s on your mind?”

Xander was quiet for a moment, contemplating. Inigo let him think.

“I wish I knew why we were asked to come here,” Xander eventually said.

Inigo looked around the room. It was bare and a bit old fashioned, but nothing particularly stood out to him about any of it.

“Do you have bad memories of this place?” he asked carefully. He and Xander had talked about everything _but_ their upcoming trip the past few days.

Xander shook his head. “Not in particular. I only vaguely remember this place at all. The only thing that stands out to me now is that my father used to come here for some periods to be alone, leaving us behind even as young children.” He frowned. “Other than that, I don’t know the significance of this place. I don’t know if he liked something about this area or if it was more important that he was simply somewhere we weren’t. I don’t know if my father expected us to find something of his here or…”

He trailed off. When Inigo was sure Xander wasn’t going to finish his sentence, he said, “We only have to spend three nights here, right? We don’t have to find anything.” He added playfully, “Technically, we don’t have to leave this room if you don’t want to.”

“Yes, I’m sure that will go over with the others quite well,” Xander said, though not as seriously as Inigo might have expected. “Not to mention the need for food.”

Inigo shrugged, still smiling.

“I’ll feed you. Breakfast in bed is pretty romantic. We can make this less of an obligation and more of a vacation.”

Xander didn’t object to the idea, but a clear tension in his features still lingered. Inigo knocked their shoulders together.

“What I mean to say,” he continued, “is that we don’t have to go out of our way to dig up things you’d rather leave buried. If the only requirement is that we spend the night here, we can make the most of it by ignoring everything that isn’t entirely necessary and then we can leave as soon as we want.”

“I know,” Xander sighed. He didn’t look happy. “I just can’t stop thinking about what the point of this all is.” He brushed his thumb across the back of Inigo’s hand gratefully. “But I appreciate your trying to lighten the mood. I do.”

Inigo shoved his guilt at not being able to do more aside and forced a smile.

“It’s what I’m here for.” He could hear several sets of feet noisily clomping their way upstairs, so he stood up. “Let’s go get those groceries before anything melts. After that, we can do whatever you want to unwind.”

Following in suit, Xander raised his eyebrows. “Anything?”

There was a teasing tone to his voice Inigo recognized well. A blur that looked suspiciously like Corrin passed by the open doorway in Inigo’s periphery, so Inigo coughed and pretended he didn’t hear the suggestion in Xander’s voice.

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” Inigo’s face felt warm. He hastily made his way out of the room. “Let’s take care of business first, shall we?”

Behind him, he heard Xander made an amused sound. Inigo cleared his throat and made his way downstairs.

                                                                             

 

 

Dinner was a short affair consisting mostly of sandwiches since nobody was in the mood to cook. By the time everyone had finished eating, there was still plenty of lingering light from the setting sun streaking across the property. The pine trees in the backyard cast long, dark shadows over the grass, but the front of the house was lit up pleasantly with an orange and yellow glow.

Or at least Beruka overheard Owain saying so. Beruka didn’t see the hundreds of colors or the “flames of the fiery sky” dancing across the lawn like he apparently did. She held no real preference for daylight over the light of the stars the way he seemed to, but Owain’s voice was clear as he clambered his way upstairs in search of Leo and Niles, describing the landscape in that boasting, overly detailed way he liked to speak as though nobody else look out a window themselves to see it.

Beruka paid him little mind. After assisting Camilla upon arrival in the endeavor of hanging up all their clothes and then allowing Camilla to stroke her hair as they laid on the large king-sized first floor bed until dinner, she still had yet to familiarize herself with the house. That would be her first order of business, she decided. She could assess the yard later.

Through the kitchen window, Beruka could see Elise’s blond head bobbing in the distance, Corrin trailing on her heels. They were out by the gazebo.

Beruka dimly wondered if the gazebo was indeed as full of wasps as Severa had offhandedly suggested.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. Dinner was over. They were outside the city. Camilla and Severa had disappeared into the master bedroom talking of relaxing after the long day of travel. She had already decided to examine the house in more detail, but somehow it felt a little strange to do so by herself.

Xander and Inigo trotted down the stairs, talking in quiet tones as they passed by the kitchen archway and then disappeared into the living room. A moment later several piano notes drifted through the air.

“Well now!” Inigo declared happily. “That’s less out of tune than I expected!”

“Do you play?” Xander asked curiously. Beruka listened without turning her head. She couldn’t have seen them without leaving the kitchen anyway.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Inigo replied, somewhat sheepishly. “I learned a few songs here and there as a child, but I was much more interested in dancing with my mother than playing the instruments.”

Beruka wasn’t very good at identifying tones or emotions in peoples voices sometimes, especially without being able to look at the speaker’s face and pick up emotional cues there. She was practicing, like Severa suggested.  She was… mostly sure she’d gotten it right this time.

“Do you remember any?” Xander asked.

“I’m not even sure if I could read the notes anymore.” Someone, presumably Inigo, pressed another piano key. “I could certainly try…”

“See if it jogs your memory,” Xander said. “If not, we can try something else.”

“If you’re sure…”

Inigo pressed a few more piano keys, seemingly at random to Beruka’s untrained ear. It was possible he was chasing some memory of a song.

“I wonder if there are any music books still here. My father—" The piano notes stopped. Xander cleared his throat. “He was a fan of the arts, but I don’t believe he ever played himself.”

“Well,” Inigo said after a beat, “we can at least put them to good use.”

“Certainly.”

Severa poked her head around the corner of the kitchen, her long pigtails swaying with the tilt of her head. Beruka hadn’t heard her approach over the sound of the piano and conversation.

“Hey,” she said, wandering into the kitchen. “What’re you doing in here?”

“Listening,” Beruka said.

Camilla appeared in the doorway next, though she leaned against the arch of the wood rather than walk further into the kitchen. Her gaze lingered on Severa and Beruka both, so Beruka nodded in acknowledgement at her over Severa’s shoulder. Camilla’s lips curled upward slightly.

“Why don’t you and Severa explore?” Camilla suggested, like she knew what Beruka had been waiting to do all this time. “You can tell me what you find.”

Severa spun on her heel, looking around the kitchen as though examining it all over again. When her eyes found their way back to Beruka, she said, “Sounds good to me.” Then she paused, frowning. She looked back to Camilla. “What about you?”

Camilla stretched her arms over her head.

“I might run the bath for a while and unwind,” she said. Then she winked, her arms falling to her side. “You two can join me if you want.”

Severa looked severely tempted. Beruka waited for her answer. Eventually, Severa shook her head.

“Maybe later,” she said. “You should rest. I want to poke around a bit.” She glanced over at Beruka. “You coming?”

Beruka nodded. She moved towards Camilla and into the front hall, Severa trailing behind. All three of them then walked into the living room, which seemed to span nearly the length of the house horizontally. The door to the master bedroom was located on the other side of the living room, on the wall opposite the sliding glass backdoor. Camilla had cooed about early morning sunrises when she had seen it.

“Have fun,” Camilla said as they split up. She headed towards their bedroom. The sun shone through sliding door, casting Camilla’s long shadow across the carpet.

Beruka hugged the right wall of the living room, making her way towards the small study she’d spotted earlier but had yet to explore. Inigo eyed them curiously as they passed but went back to testing piano keys when Beruka ignored him.

The study was small. Even with only Severa and Beruka standing within its confines, Beruka was unsure if the study could fit a third person without them forcing them to bump into each other with every step. The carpeted floor of the living room shifted into a dark wood that matched equally dark walls. Several thin bookshelves lined the square study.

Beruka was immediately drawn to the utilitarian desk pushed up against the far wall. It sat directly across from the doorway. Beruka examined it while Severa examined the bookshelves.

Severa ran her finger against one of the shelves, grimacing as she pulled her hand back and found the layer of dust on her fingertip.

“Ew. This place needs to be aired out.” She wiped the dirt onto her jeans. “More than the other parts of the house, I mean.”

Beruka eyed the already opened book on the desk top. Her eyes scanned the page.

_“I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”_

That sentence—and many others, as Beruka quickly found via a quick flip through the book—were highlighted in yellow. When she turned to the cover, she was unsurprised to find she was holding a hardback copy of _Frankenstein_ in her hands. Presumably it had belonged to Camilla’s father before, but there was no way to determine that for certain now.

Either way, it didn’t offer her much now. Beruka carefully placed the book back on the desk exactly as she had found it and looked around the rest of the room.

Crouched by her hip, Severa was opening and closing desk drawers with disinterest.

“It’s all extra pens and blank paper in here,” she complained. “Isn’t an office where you’re supposed to keep all your important documents? You’d think he’d have kept more interesting stuff in here if he wanted his kids to spend the night.”

She avoided saying Garon’s name out loud, possibly out of respect for the fact Xander stood only a few feet on the other side of the wall. The study door had been closed to give them extra room to move around, but not all the way. Beruka could still hear the slightly muffled back and forth commentary of Xander and Inigo at the piano.

“The only requirement is that they spend the night,” Beruka softly reminded her. “Nothing else.”

Severa fixed her with a look. “You think he seriously just wanted them to spend a few days here and _nothing_ else?”

Beruka did not, so she said nothing.

“No way,” Severa answered for her. “He totally left something here for us to find. No way he wanted Camilla to come here just to relive some memories.”

Beruka did not comment on Severa’s use of “us” instead of “them.” She and Severa were not related to Camilla’s family in any legal sense. Camilla automatically included them in everything that involved the family, however, and so Beruka did not correct Severa from doing the same thing. She did not particularly mind the assumed grouping anyway.

Quietly, she also agreed with Severa. There was likely something else at play here. That was part of the reason she had wanted to explore the villa already, and she suspected the same might have been said for Severa.

Severa shoved the last drawer closed and stood up. Beruka deftly took a step back to avoid the top of Severa’s head from slamming into her chin. Severa craned her neck back and looked around the room.

“Are these just all medical textbooks?” she asked, pulling a book out from the top of the shelves by its spine and flipping through the pages. After a moment she shoved it back and looked at the other titles.

Beruka, who stood at least a good foot shorter than Severa both because of Severa’s natural height and her own below-average stature, reached for a much closer book on another shelf.

“There’s also philosophy,” Beruka said, titling her head slightly to read the titles on the spines. “And…”

She paused. She grabbed one of the thicker books from the end of its row and stared at the front.

“And what?” Severa came up behind her, looking over Beruka’s shoulder. She plucked the book from Beruka’s hands with a wrinkle-nosed expression. “Is this about the occult? It looks so cheesy.”

Her eyes automatically glazed over the black and white jagged lettering on the cover. The title had something to do with dark magic. It did seem, Beruka agreed, rather cheesy.

Another look at the shelves told her that wasn’t the only book on the supernatural and strange in the study. There were other books lining the shelves that appeared to be anything but factual. Others books weren’t titled at all and instead were only bound together with dyed leather covers Beruka had to open to get a sense of the content.

“Huh,” Severa said. “I never pictured Camilla’s dad as the kind of guy to be into this stuff. Then again, I guess Camilla did say he started getting strange as he got older. But I thought that meant…” She grimaced. Beruka had a good idea of what she meant. “Not…”

Again, she trailed off. Beruka looked around the room, taking note of it all. There was a small window in the corner of the room, near the ceiling, that let in the dying rays of light, but it was too high up to reach without standing on the desk and Beruka was only moderately sure she could have crawled through it anyway. It was doubtful anybody else could have aside from Elise.

It was, all in all, a very cramped room. Beruka had a hard time imagining Garon had spent as many hours in here as the copious number of books suggested.

Severa poked around for a few more moments while Beruka stood in the corner and tried to make sense of it all. She watched Severa flip through _Frankenstein_ and then examine the other books on the shelves some more. Severa muttered something about Elise maybe liking some of the more medical-related texts, but she didn’t seem very enthused about the prospect. Beruka waited. Eventually Severa was satisfied.

Severa and Beruka stood there for a moment in silence.

“Well,” Severa huffed. “This stuff is weird but probably not what we’re looking for. Let’s go explore the rest of the house, I guess.”

She took Beruka’s cool hand in her own, and Beruka followed.

They investigated most of the upstairs rooms to little avail. The first few rooms at the top of the stairs were bedrooms, and the one Niles, Leo, and Owain had presumably chosen appeared to be closed. Beruka and Severa didn’t test the doorknob to check if it was locked for the sake of privacy. It looked like Corrin and Elise had chosen different bedrooms right next to each other. The door to Xander and Inigo’s room was cracked open, but there was nothing of particular note inside.

As they moved further down the hall and peered into more and more empty bedrooms, it became clear that the rooms were all more or less identical to one another. The bedrooms all held at least a bed and usually a wardrobe—sometimes a dresser or an extra bedside table, seemingly at random—but they all lacked other accessories like televisions or extra lamps. The hallways lining the doors were surprisingly narrow as well. But at least, Severa commented, the bedrooms were not nearly as small. It was the one positive they found among the bare walls and plain carpet.

There were other rooms besides bedrooms as well. There was a game room for playing pool and darts, an open terrace in the corner of the house for sunbathing, several adequate bathrooms, but none of them particularly caught either Severa’s or Beruka’s interest. Severa expressed interest in sunbathing in the morning before it grew too hot, though she lamented the lack of pool.

In the hallway connected to the staircase, Beruka spotted a pull-down attic entrance but didn’t bother searching for something to pull the attic door open with. Even with a hooked pole for assistance, Beruka didn’t think she would have been tall enough to open the hatch, and though Severa might have been able to, her comments about the dust and dead mice and their lacking any flashlights put a quick stop to that thought. Those things did not particularly bother Beruka, but Severa’s discomfort at lacking the proper equipment outweighed her curiosity and so she put that thought on hold.

As they searched, no matter what odds or ends Severa dropped Beruka’s hand to inspect, her fingers always found their place between Beruka’s again before they ever moved to a new room. Severa’s hand in her own felt inevitable.

They were walking back downstairs, finished with their search for now, when the front door opened. Corrin and Elise came in quickly, shutting the door behind them. Corrin was absently scratching at their arm.

“Hey!” Elise greeted when she saw them on the stairs. Beruka registered the piano as having finally stopped. It was possible Inigo and Xander had returned to their bedroom while Beruka and Severa had been preoccupied. “Have you guys been outside yet? The yard is so big! I bet we could play a big game of tag out there tomorrow.”

Beruka was mostly neutral to the idea. If Severa and Camilla played, then so would she. The exercise would be fine, and it would keep them all occupied during the day, at least.

Corrin smiled warmly, still scratching their arm. “It’s an idea, at least. I figured we didn’t have anything else planned tomorrow anyway, and it sounds like a good idea.”

“Maybe,” Severa said noncommittally. With her arm stretched out to hold the banister, she blocked Beruka from moving past her. The stairs were not very wide. “Some of us might ride into town tomorrow since we only have to stay here overnight.” At Elise’s drooping face, she added, “But we can probably play in the afternoon or something.”

“Yay!” Elise cheered. There were red bumps on her calves, Beruka noted. Elise leaned down to scratch them.

Severa noticed as well. “Did you guys get eaten alive by mosquitos or what?”

Corrin laughed sheepishly.

“A bit,” they admitted. “As the sun started to set, I guess they all started to come out. It’s our own fault though.”

Severa shook her head. “I think I have some anti-itching stuff in my bag. Wait here.”

“Really? Thanks!”

“Thanks so much!” Elise chimed in.

There was the distant sound of the back-porch doors sliding open and then Inigo and Xander’s voices. Beruka amended her assumption that Inigo and Xander had gone back up to their room. They had apparently been in the backyard instead.

Severa made it to the bottom of the stairs and turned to head towards the bedroom. Beruka followed.

 

 

 

Footsteps passed by the door. Owain perked up from his 3DS screen for the tenth time in the past two minutes, clearly curious. As the footsteps passed, he looked back down to his game screen. Then, as though he couldn’t help it, he glanced towards the window. The open view of the front yard sat beyond the glass, empty of people and too full of grass in desperate need of a trim. It resembled something closer to a wheat field than a normal front yard.

Owain sat in the one lone armchair in the room, 3DS is hand and legs thrown over the side. Niles eyed him from the bed, back pressed against the headboard. Leo sat between his legs holding a book. Niles had previously been reading the book over Leo’s shoulder, but Leo hadn’t turned the page in over a minute and Niles was reluctant to pull him from his thoughts. So he watched Owain instead.

Owain, who squirmed in his seat and looked longingly out the window and was desperately trying to pretend he didn’t want to be outside.

Niles felt his mouth curl into a reluctant smile.

Leo had been somewhat quiet on the drive over, and he’d only gotten quieter after they had unpacked. There was a lot on his mind, Niles knew. Leo would talk about it if he wanted to. Since he either didn’t want to or was still sorting out his own thoughts, Niles tried to be respectful of that.

Owain was trying too, in his own way. He’d toned down some of his eagerness after he’d barged into the bedroom talking about exploring the woods behind the house and found Leo and Niles sitting silently inside. At one mention of being tired from Leo, Owain had immediately switched gears into offering to get some juice or an extra blanket or “Oh, what about a massage?”

Niles had joined in a bit, just to tease. They both backed off when they felt Leo’s patience growing thinner and had settled into their respective hobbies.

Leo’s father had just died. Niles plainly disliked the man and wasn’t afraid to say so. He had told Leo as much on the one occasion Leo had asked how he felt. Leo had accepted his frank answer with a considering nod. How Leo felt about the matter, of course, was something else entirely. Niles would never forgive Garon for all the grief he’d put Leo through, and he doubted Leo could either.

However, Niles had never had a family. He had Leo and, somewhat more recently, Owain. He’d been told blood relations were complicated things. Niles did not consider them to be particularly binding ties, but Leo and his siblings had always placed a large emphasis on family. So if Leo needed to be alone with his thoughts while he sorted out his feelings on his father’s passing and the strange request left in his will—Well. Niles was always looking for an excuse to pamper him a bit.

Owain’s eyes wandered from the window to his game and then to Niles. He ducked his head sheepishly when Niles caught his eye, pretending to go back to his game.

Niles took pity on him. They had sat in silence long enough.

“I can accompany you in exploring the grounds tomorrow, you know,” Niles said.

Owain perked up with excitement. “Really?” He glanced at Leo, who had finally stopped staring into space and lifted his head from his book. Owain deflated slightly. “I mean. We can see how we feel tomorrow.”

Leo sighed.

“You don’t need me with you to go roaming about the yard,” he said. “The property stretches out farther than you’d think. I’m sure you can keep yourself occupied for a good few hours without me.”

“Yeah, but we _like_ doing things with you,” Owain countered as Niles began idly scratching his short nails up Leo’s arm. Leo shivered ever so slightly and relaxed further into his touch. The book fell closed into Leo’s lap.

After a beat, Leo looked at the corner of the room and said, “Sorry. I’ve been distracted the past few days. I’m sure it hasn’t been enjoyable for you two.”

“It’s not really a vacation,” Niles pointed out.

“But it might as well be, considering have no other reason to be here,” Leo said.

Owain swung his legs to the floor and sat up properly in his chair, setting his 3DS aside. “Our reason for being here is you, genius.”

Leo still sounded uncertain. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be up to getting sweaty and tromping around in the dirt tomorrow, but I’ll let you know. You two should still get out of the house even if I’m not though.”

Then he sniffed as though he were just as stuffy as the house when Niles knew that wasn’t true.

Owain crawled onto the bed and stretched himself out along Niles’s hip.

“It would be good for you to get out of the house too,” Niles said. He reached down and took Leo’s hand in his own, pulling Leo’s hand up to his mouth so Niles’s lips could graze Leo’s wrist. “Would you care to be distracted in a different sense?”

Leo didn’t answer immediately, but that wasn’t a no. His back was still pressed to Niles’s chest, and Leo had given no indication of moving anytime soon. Owain’s hand slid over Niles’s thigh as Niles began kissing his way down Leo’s neck. Leo let out a tiny sigh.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather keep reading?” Leo asked, sounding rather reluctant as Owain’s hand slid past Niles’s thigh and over onto his.

Niles shrugged, sure Leo could feel the movement against his back. “The books will still be here when we finish.”

“Besides, reading is boring anyway,” Owain chimed in.

Leo inclined his head towards him. “You’re one to talk.”

There was amusement in his voice, so Niles considered it a win.

 

 

 

Elise loved her father.

She hadn’t known him very well. She remembered a time when she was young, when he had looked at her more and had been gruff only half the time, and her siblings all assured her that he loved her too, truly. She had _known_ that to be true.

She still knew he had loved her, even after all the days in court and the muffled conversations behind closed doors and how she saw her father much less after it all. Even after she had sat in the court chair next to the judge and quietly admitted into a microphone that she would have rather liked to live with Xander instead, please. Even after the years of barely seeing him at all, after the days where Xander would hang up the phone with a shake of his head and Camilla would shuffle her off somewhere else to distract her while Corrin curiously peered out from behind a corner and Leo pretended to look not as bothered as he really felt—

Even after all that, Elise knew he had loved them.

But she still missed him. She had started missing him long before her father’s death. She missed the family they could have been.

She had Xander and Camilla and Leo and Corrin, though. She still had a family. It was a very good family. She liked Niles and Beruka and Severa and Owain and Inigo too. The idea of them becoming an official part of the family was a good one too, she thought. She was really looking forward to it.

So Elise was sad about her dad in a lot of ways. But she knew her family was there to support her when she needed it, which was good. She was excited about spending the next few days in her father’s other home too. She wondered if she’d find a part of him there that she’d never seen before. A softer part. She wondered if it would be a kinder version of him that she’d been born too late to see.

That thought had made her perk up at first, when Elise had arrived at the house and seen the endless yard and felt the summer sun on her skin and thought, _Who could ever be unhappy here?_

In the present moment, however, Elise was a little scared.

She couldn’t help it. The house was foreign and strange, which had been exciting during the day. It was less inviting and exciting at night.

The darkness in the hallways slithered. Every floorboard creaked louder than it should have. Ghostly breath tickling the back of Elise’s neck sent a chill down her spine, and worst of all, the kitchen was a million miles away.

Elise hugged her arms, feeling the goosebumps rising under her sleeves. Her pajama top and bottoms had felt cozy when she put them on. Maybe it was her bare feet that left her feeling so vulnerable at the top of the staircase. Not for the first time, Elise thought about running back to her room and asking Corrin or somebody else to walk her downstairs.

But that thought was childish, and Elise was trying really, really hard to be more adult-like now. At least for a while. She knew Xander and her other siblings were sad about their father’s passing too. They had a lot on their minds. She knew they were stressed by coming here, as much as she pretended otherwise. She didn’t want to make it harder on them by waking them up in the middle of the night.

Besides, she could do this. Corrin and Severa and Beruka were sleeping on the first floor too. They weren’t very far at all. Elise wasn’t totally alone.

With one hand clutching the railing, Elise carefully picked her way down the first step. Plush carpeting met her toes instead of open air. She stepped down.

Only twenty more to go, she thought.

Between the secret shadowy monsters in the corner of her vision and Elise’s urge to freeze every other step, it took a good few minutes to even make it down the stairs. Once she did, however, it was a straight shot to the kitchen. The base of the stairs and the kitchen archway were barely separated by the space of a few feet. Elise could make that, easy.

Or she’d thought so, at least, until she actually made it to the bottom of the stairs. Then the strange shadowy shapes of the kitchen table and the fridge and everything else that had looked normal in the daytime began to dance in the dark, taunting her. The kitchen fan had turned into a snake that eyed her, ready to pounce.

Elise froze.

Getting a glass of water had never been so hard.

 _If I count my steps,_ she thought, _then the monsters can’t get me._

It was an old trick Leo had taught her. She hadn’t thought he’d believed in monsters back then, but after Leo had revealed the trick like a secret, it had never failed her. It had been a long time since Elise had used it, though. Xander’s house wasn’t nearly as creepy at night as this house felt.

Elise forced herself to take a step forward and counted. _One, two, three…_

No monsters reached out to grab her ankles. Every new step she took filled her with a burst of courage.

By the time she reached step thirty-three, she had made it well into the kitchen and had found a clean cup. She counted her steps even as she pressed her cup under the water dispenser on the fridge, the dim yellow light of the dispense startling her for a moment as it came to life. By the time the water had filled the cup to nearly the top, she felt almost safe.

She took a sip of the water. Then another, because it was sweet and she was very thirsty. The cup was still mostly full by the time she finished drinking, so she decided to take it back upstairs with her. She turned and went to walk back to her room.

When she reached the kitchen archway again, though, she stopped.

The living room was very dark. So were the stairs. It was difficult for Elise to make out the shapes of the furniture and walls.

The one thing she could hear for certain was the wet, raspy breathing of something else in the room with her.

 _Oh no,_ she thought suddenly. She’d forgotten to count her steps.

If she took another step and started counting again, then maybe—No, that wouldn’t work. She’d messed up. She wasn’t sure she had the courage to move again with something unknown waiting to pounce on her in the dark.

Maybe—

Maybe if she stood still, it would go away.

Elise squeezed her eyes shut. Hoping.

For a moment she heard nothing aside from the distant sounds of crickets. A cool breeze tickled her ankles and brushed her hair. Elise trembled.

It was the wind, she told herself. She heard the reminder in Xander’s soothing voice, comforting her as he had so many times before. Then, in Leo’s logical voice: _It was only the wind._

For a moment she imagined Camilla petting her head and calling her silly. She almost felt better.

Then she heard it again.

The breathing.

Wet.

Harsh.

Awful.

Closer than before.

That was it. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her eyes sprung open, even less adjusted to the dark than they had been before.

Heedless of counting her steps or the cup of water she clutched too tightly in hand, Elise dashed across the front doorway and up the stairs. Water splashed up her arm as she ran, getting her pajama sleeves wet, but she didn’t care. She pounded up the steps and found the door to Corrin’s room on instinct, sure that something was giving chase hot on her heels. The door wasn’t locked. Elise swung it open and ducked inside, slamming the door behind her.

Elise pressed her back to the bedroom door, breathing heavily. The little remaining water in the cup shook in her trembling hand.

She could hear nothing over the wild beating of her heart in her chest—no monster’s breathless rattle, no footsteps in the hallway. Nothing.

A dark figure jerked up from the bed. A scream had risen halfway in Elise’s throat before she realized it was Corrin.

“Elise?” Corrin asked, sounding confused. Corrin hadn’t left any lamps on in their room like Elise had, and the pale sliver of the moon outside didn’t illuminate much. Corrin was basically a shadow against the wall. A friendly one. “Is everything okay?”

Corrin’s voice was thick with sleep, but their words immediately made Elise feel better anyway.

Scuttling across the room, Elise hastily placed her glass of water on the floor and crawled into bed next to Corrin. She wrapped her arms around their torso. Corrin hesitantly hugged her back.

“Are you alright?” Corrin asked again. “Did something happen? Do we need to wake everyone up?”

Elise quickly shook her head. It took her a moment to find her voice.

“No!” she squeaked. “I just—had a bad dream.”

Because that’s all it had really been, hadn’t it? Her imagination getting away from her again.

Elise wanted to wilt, though she knew it was true. She couldn’t help that she was hearing monsters in the dark like some kid. She wished she was old enough that she didn’t anymore, but it wasn’t something she could control. Camilla had once called her imagination a good thing, but Elise couldn’t just take the good parts about it without taking the bad as well. She couldn’t help when her thoughts ran away from her.

She wished she could. But she couldn’t.

Corrin, ever understanding, rubbed her back. “I understand that. I had a bad dream the other night too. Do you want to talk about it?”

Again, Elise shook her head. She was tempted to explain what had spooked her, but she was too embarrassed to follow through. She would have rathered they just both go back to bed.

“Can I stay in here tonight?” Elise asked, a little hesitant. She was sure Corrin would say yes, but…

“Of course,” Corrin said, and Elise was immediately at ease. She felt safer sharing a room with someone else tonight. “Do you want to just lay back down?”

“Yeah.”

So they did. Corrin’s breathing was smooth and even, and the sound of it made Elise forget about the creepy rasping breath she had imagined in the kitchen. Leo probably would have said it was an open window or something anyway. He probably would have been right.

“Goodnight, Elise,” Corrin whispered.

“Goodnight,” Elise whispered back.

She was still a little thirsty, but she didn’t want to reach down and grab her drink again. She just wanted to go back to sleep.

So she did.

 

 

 

When Camilla walked out of the bedroom the next morning, the first thing she saw was backdoor. It was open. A few leaves and blown in and rested on the carpet.

Camillla frowned.

“Oh my,” she murmured to herself, shutting the door. “Who left this open?”

“Ah.”

She turned. Xander stood in the kitchen archway, looking more underdressed than she normally saw him. Which meant he wore a pair of jeans instead of khaki pants and his button-up shirt was untucked. He was holding a steaming cup of coffee.

“That might have been Inigo and I,” Xander confessed, looking somewhat embarrassed. “We ended up sitting outside for quite a while last night. I thought we had closed the doors behind us, but perhaps not.”

“So you were distracted,” Camilla inferred, putting the proper purr into her voice.

Xander took a steadfast sip from his mug and disappeared into the kitchen without answer. Camilla laughed as Severa came stumbling out of the bedroom, hair loose around her shoulders. She bumped her forehead into Camilla’s shoulder, and Camilla lifted her arm to pull Severa close.

“Tired?” Camilla asked.

Severa groaned against Camilla’s chest. Camilla laughed again, turning to hug Severa completely. She threaded her fingers through Severa’s long hair, taking a deep breath. The fresh morning air felt good in her lungs.

The day before, she’d felt out of sorts. Now, after a long evening of bubble baths and lazing around in bed with her two favorite girls, Camilla felt significantly refreshed.

She felt Severa’s arms sling themselves low around her waist. Camilla rested her elbows on Severa’s shoulders. “Why don’t you get Beruka and we can have breakfast?”

“Beruka’s lookin’ out the window,” Severa mumbled.

Camilla assumed this was Severa’s sleepy way of telling her Beruka was awake, though Camilla had seen that Beruka had been up and dressed before Camilla herself had even climbed out of bed. Despite her protests, Severa still pulled herself away from Camilla and meandered back into the bedroom. Camilla smiled at her warmly as she retreated. Then she joined Xander in the kitchen.

She wasn’t exactly hungry and Xander appeared to be favoring his e-mails on his phone over cooking anything himself, so Camilla just poured herself a cup of coffee from the old machine on the counter. They sat together at the kitchen table peacefully, letting the morning wash over them. The distant sounds of a shower turning on registered in Camilla’s ears right as Beruka entered the kitchen.

Beruka greeted her with, “I was unaware this house was equipped with a fireplace.”

Camilla blinked. Even Xander looked up from his phone at the sound of her voice.

“If there was a fireplace, it’d be on the first floor,” Camilla said. Naturally observant Beruka of all people should have realized that already. “There isn’t one.”

“But there is a tree stump and an axe outside our window,” Beruka said. “And extra firewood.”

Xander frowned. “That is unusual. I’m not sure what it would have been used for.” He looked to Camilla. “A hobby?”

Camilla sighed. Of all the strange things their father had done, chopping wood in his spare time was the least worrying of them. “At the very least, we can have a bonfire later, if there’s space. Elise and Corrin might like that.”

“We can construct a firepit if there isn’t one already,” Xander suggested. It was a nice change of subject. “I’m not sure if we have hotdogs or things to cook though.”

“We can make a trip into town. Severa suggested it anyway.”

Beruka, either satisfied with the conversation or noting that it was taking a turn she didn’t care to be part of, went to the cabinet and grabbed one of the new boxes of cereal they had bought the day before. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and carefully placed the box back in the cabinet while Camilla and Xander continued talking about the logistics of what they could do that afternoon.

The others wandered downstairs over time. Inigo joined them after a few minutes, having likely woken up around the same time as Xander. He dug around in the fridge and pulled out two yogurt cups before taking a seat next to Xander. Xander greeted him with a kiss.

Owain came in right behind Inigo. He wasn’t there long before Camilla heard the water in her bathroom shut off. There were distant footsteps upstairs that told Camilla the others were rising as well.

When Severa entered the kitchen with a towel wrapped around her hair and piled high on her head, fresh from her shower, she took one look at Owain with narrowed eyes and snorted. “Thanks for being as loud as possible last night.”

Owain shoved his bite of toast to the side of his mouth and said, “What?”

“All that thumping around in the ceiling last night.” Severa stole some of Owain’s toast from his plate, swiping her hand over Beruka’s shoulders in a morning greeting. “Some people are trying to sleep, you know.”

The tips of Owain’s ears had turned suspiciously pink.

“How do you know that was even us?” he asked.

Severa took a large bite of her plain toast in answer. Then she made a face and began searching the fridge for a topping. They had only brought a few necessities and extras to last them for three days, so Camilla wasn’t surprised when she came back empty-handed.

“Our room isn’t even above yours,” Owain continued to complain. “Xander and Inigo are way closer! How do you know it wasn’t them, huh?”

Inigo choked on his yogurt. Xander looked resolutely at his phone, stone faced.

Severa rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Just keep it down, alright?”

“We didn’t even do anything!”

“Beruka, back me up here,” Severa said, offering Owain’s plate out to Camilla.

Without acknowledgement, Beruka quietly walked out of the kitchen. Camilla took one of the offered slices of toast with a smile.

“Good morning, Elise,” she said loud enough for the full kitchen to hear.

From the top of the stairs, Elise waved happily. “Good morning!”

Out of Elise’s line of sight, Severa mouthed something at Owain while Owain looked back at her incredulously. Then they had a brief tug-of-war as Owain finally noticed where all his toast had gone and Elise entered the kitchen.

“We were thinking of having a bonfire tonight,” Xander told her. “How does that sound?”

Elise squealed with delight, face shining brighter than the sun. “That sounds like fun! Will there be marshmallows?”

“If you want,” Camilla said. They didn’t have marshmallows now, but they could get some. What was the point of a bonfire without s’mores anyway? With Elise’s excitement palpable in the air, Camilla found herself looking forward to it already.

Inigo turned his head towards Xander. “When were you going to tell the rest of us about this?”

Xander gave him an amused look.

“Camilla and I have been discussing it the whole time,” Xander said. “You weren’t listening.”

Severa laughed. Inigo blushed.

“Some of us are awake in the mornings,” Owain teased.

Elise spun on her heel and called up the stairs. “Did you hear that, Corrin? We’re going to have a bonfire!”

“A bonfire?” Corrin’s distant voice drifted down the stairs. “Right now?”

“Later tonight,” Xander said. “After we go into town and build a firepit. Assuming the wood isn’t rotted from the rain.”

He gave Camilla a significant look as Elise recited the information to Corrin via shouting. Camilla made a mental note to ask Beruka to check if the wood outside the house was usable. They didn’t now how long it had been there, but even two or three logs would suffice for a nice fire.

“Oh!” Owain said, straightening. “Niles and I can do that! We can totally build a bonfire.”

Camilla shrugged. She didn’t know what Owain was capable of, and Niles had a lot of hidden talents. Leo or Niles would speak up later if Owain was volunteering them for the impossible.

Inigo, however, looked unconvinced.

“That grass outside is pretty tall,” he said, clearly worried about something catching ablaze. “Can we really do that?”

Owain waved him off. “It’ll be fine. I’ve been camping before. Oh, we should totally tell bonfire stories too! I’ll prepare mine in advance.”

“No way,” Severa said, bumping his shoulder. “You’ll go on for _hours_.”

“No, I won’t!” Owain paused, amending his denial with, “At least you guys will be entertained!”

“Absolutely not,” Inigo said.

Camilla buried her smile in her now cold cup of coffee. Then she grimaced, setting her cup aside.

“We can deal with that later,” she said. “Who wants to go into town to get supplies?”

“I can,” Severa immediately volunteered. Camilla nodded. She’d ask Beruka in a moment as well.

Elise, having overhead Camilla, stopped yelling back and forth with Corrin up the stairs.

“Wait,” Elise said, cheer drooping. “I thought we’d be able to play some games today.”

“We can still do that this afternoon,” Inigo said, smiling gently at her. “Once we have everything prepared.”

“And after you eat breakfast,” Camilla reminded her. Looking disappointed for only a second, Elise came back into the kitchen and began searching the fridge for something to eat. Xander helpfully reminded her that her favorite cereal was in the cabinet.

Niles suddenly appeared on the staircase, leaning over to peer through the kitchen archway curiously. “What’s this about me getting volunteered for things without my consent?”

“So you have finally awakened from the world of slumber!” Owain greeted in a very announcer-like voice. “Behold, Niles! A destiny full of fire awaits us! Mastering the elements will be quite harrowing, but between the two of us, I believe this is possible, even if it takes years!”

“I was kind of hoping it would be tonight,” Elise said, playing along.

“Even if it takes this afternoon!”

Niles leaned against the banister and propped his chin up in his hand. “That doesn’t explain the part where you told everyone I could make a firepit with you.”

“Er—” Now Owain looked nervous. “Can’t you?”

Niles sighed affectionately. “I’ll see what we can do.”

Owain and Elise both cheered, clearly taking that to be a “yes.” Niles shook his head with a thin smile and disappeared upstairs, no doubt to grab Leo. Corrin passed him on the way down, still in their pajamas.

“You might want to get ready,” Xander told them. “It’s already getting late, and whoever wants to go to town will be leaving soon.”

Camilla got up and went to dump the remnants of her coffee into the sink. She’d probably go to town with everyone just to give herself something to do. It was a plan for the day, at the very least. It was more than she’d had the day before.

Then she sniffed at the sight of the dust dancing in the sunlight. The house was stuffy enough that it would feel good to be out in the sun for a while, even if the weather was a little warmer than Camilla usually preferred it to be.

 

 

 

It didn’t take five people to drive to the nearest town with a grocery store that didn’t also function as a gas station, but that was how many people piled into Camilla’s car to go.

Elise, Corrin, Camilla, and Severa had immediately volunteered to make the trip, which left one seat ripe for the taking. They could have taken Xander’s car to fit himself and Inigo as well, as originally planned before they realized their oversight, but Xander argued that taking both cars was frivolous and volunteered to stay behind. Inigo wasn’t having any of that, however, and he all but pushed Xander into the car, citing the need for fresh air and Xander not attempting to do work with no wi-fi all day. Eventually, whether because of his sibling’s pleas or Inigo’s insistence, he got in the car.

“Text us if you realize you need something before we get back,” Severa reminded Owain and Inigo before Camilla pulled away from the house. “Don’t burn down the house while we’re gone.”

“Hey!” Inigo said, mock offended.

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Severa corrected. She looked over to Beruka, who was watching them pull out of the driveway from the front steps, and called out, “Don’t let them burn the house down while we’re gone!”

“Hey!” Inigo and Owain said in unison, as though their exchange with Severa was a comedic bit they had practiced together. Severa knew from experience that it wasn’t.

Beruka nodded seriously. “Understood.”

Severa adjusted her sunglasses on her face. It was a bright, bright day, and she was ready to roll up the window to keep the air conditioning trapped in the car with her. She held Camilla’s hand across the divider, and she half wished Beruka would be coming with them. But there weren’t enough seats and Beruka had declined to join, so Severa had let it go.

It was going to be an hour drive into the nearest town and an hour drive back, not counting any time they wasted in the store. Ideally Owain and the others would be finished with the fire pit by the time they returned.

They wouldn’t make a fire until that evening when the summer heat died down, but the sight of the finished firepit would at least assure Severa that the trip hadn’t been a total waste of time.

“Time to go,” Camilla said, dropping Severa’s hand to place both of hers on the steering wheel.

They drove away from the house. Severa rolled up the window.

 

 

 

With half the group gone, Beruka turned away from the driveway. Owain jogged past her and into the house, calling for Niles’s assistance in the backyard and Leo’s mandatory supervision. She heard Niles and Leo’s rumbling responses through the open door, though she couldn’t see them. Inigo, trailing slowly behind, laughed and told Owain to slow down. He followed Owain inside, flashing Beruka a smile as he passed, but he went upstairs rather than follow Owain through the living room.

Beruka didn’t go into the house at all. Instead, she walked down the front steps and around the side of the house.

As expected—though Beruka had failed to notice it the first night—there was a small pile of wood stacked against the side of the house. A weathered looking tree stump was located immediately next to the pile, and what Beruka had first taken to be a full-sized axe turned out to be a smaller but still usable hatchet.

Beruka also noted that the window above the pile of wood was the same window that looked into the master bathroom—the window Beruka had spotted the woodpile from earlier that morning. Her mental map of the house was becoming clearer by the minute.

After a moment’s inspection, the wood still seemed usable, though the few logs on top were better off avoided due to their dampness from recent rainfall. Beruka gathered a few decent logs under her arm and walked into the backyard.

There was no physical marker to denote the divide between the backyard and the tree line. The trees began where they pleased and seemed to grow a foot thicker for every extra inch away from the house they were located. It was impossible to tell how far back the property went without physically walking through the plentiful shade of the trees.

The grass in the backyard was strangely shorter than the grass in the front yard, presumably because of the abundant shade blocking out the sunlight and the increased competition for resources with the nearby trees. Here the grass was knee-high in some places and ankle high in others, indicating infrequent growth and uneven trimming. Beruka doubted it had even been cut in the past year.

It was there that Beruka found Niles and Leo gathering different stones among the edge of the tree line while Owain shouted encouragements from the sidelines.

“The bigger the stone, the better!” Owain called out.

Leo stood up from his spot in the grass, looking back disapprovingly. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping us do this?”

“I’m, ah. Looking for a shovel still!”

“Uh-huh.” Niles’s voice was tinged with disbelief. He didn’t even bother raising his head to reply. “Either look harder or tell the others that we’ll need to buy a shovel as well. And maybe some sand while they’re at it.”

“I doubt they’ll find a place that sells sand anywhere nearby,” Leo said reasonably.

“And I doubt we want a fire on our hands,” Niles said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Somebody owns a farm shop somewhere around here.”

Beruka placed the chosen logs beside the backdoor for easy access later. Then she stood by Owain’s side until he noticed her.

Owain blinked at her. “What’s up?”

“What can I do to assist?” she asked.

She’d wanted to stay behind to look around the house a bit more, but it wasn’t until Severa and Camilla had left that Beruka realized she had nowhere to start that they hadn’t already investigated at least somewhat. That left her at somewhat of a loss. Making herself useful for the group as a whole seemed a good a place to start as any.

“Oh, yeah.” Owain smiled. “Do you know if there are shovels or anything we can use to dig around here? It’ll be pretty hard to make the pit just in the grass.”

Beruka nodded. She hadn’t seen any shovels, but she could find one. She had found the hatchet and wood, after all. It was possible there were tools near the gazebo or other places she had yet to explore.

As she rounded the far side of the house to begin her search, Beruka noticed a pair of red cellar doors pressed against the base of the house that she had never seen before. They weren’t visible from any window that she could see, and Beruka hadn’t investigated the yard enough to spot them before.

Something about the cellar doors gave Beruka pause. They weren’t made of wood to fit the aesthetic of the house like Beruka would have expected. They were made of some kind of metal. A thick padlock hooking through the door handles kept the doors tightly shut.

Beruka frowned.

She hadn’t seen any way to access the basement from the first floor. She hadn’t even realized there was a basement until now.

“I noticed that earlier,” Niles said from behind her. Beruka almost hadn’t heard him approach. “I considered picking the lock, but Leo requested I not break anything before day three.”

His tone was almost amused, but his face didn’t share the same expression. Beruka waited, but Niles didn’t offer anything more.

She fingered the lock again, curious. The lock wasn’t exactly new, though it didn’t look particularly old either. She didn’t have the skills to pick the lock like Niles might have, but she was no stranger to hitting an object until it broke either. The hatchet laying around the other side of the house may have been strong enough to do the job. Then again, it may have just as easily broke apart in the attempt. As curious as the basement was, it wasn’t Beruka’s priority at the moment, and breaking the lock would have wasted a lot of energy perhaps better spent looking for a key. Or better yet, a shovel.

Plus, if Leo didn’t want Niles breaking anything yet, Camilla probably didn’t want her to either.

Beruka rose. She and Niles shared a look, though she wasn’t exactly sure what feeling either of them were attempting to convey with it. Kinship, maybe. She didn’t know.

With the cellar doors noted, Beruka returned to her search. As she finally rounded the far side of the house, she noticed Niles finally dragging Owain off the porch and toward the trees.

 

 

 

Overall, Xander considered the afternoon a success.

Granted, it had taken longer than he had initially thought to find all the supplies they needed. The hotdogs and marshmallows had been easy enough to acquire, but then Corrin and Elise had gotten distracted by the different camping equipment and the group ended up lingering for longer than expected. They had also waited longer than strictly necessary to see if anyone still back at the house needed anything while they were out. There was a brief discussion over needing a shovel via a group chat containing Corrin, Leo, Niles, and Owain, but then Beruka found a rusty but usable shovel at the last moment, rendering all their arguing moot.

Camilla had “coincidentally” spotted an ice cream shop on the drive back, and they had been in good enough spirits to stop there as well.  Xander had no doubt Camilla had planned the detour from the start. Not that he minded. A treat was a good way to end a long afternoon out. They had ordered enough milkshakes for the whole group and then some.

The milkshakes grew to be a little warmer than was strictly pleasant by the time they arrived back at the house, but a short break in the freezer had fixed that quite nicely.

Those that had stayed at the house seemed quite pleased with the surprise as well. Even Beruka appeared overly warm from the summer heat, and she quietly took her vanilla milkshake with a nod and sucked it down in the corner.

Xander caught Severa pressing her cold, ice cream stained lips to Beruka’s cheek while she was distracted. Beruka jerked back in surprise only to find Camilla leaning down to kiss her other cheek as well. Beruka looked caught off guard by the double-sided assault, though not unpleased. Xander had smiled at the sight.

Leo thanked Xander for his frozen treat as well, taking three of the milkshakes to the back porch with him. Xander took the opportunity to follow him and inspect how the firepit had come along in his absence.

Truth be told, he hadn’t at all been excited at the prospect of spending a few days in his father’s old villa. He had been sure it would only bring up bad memories and unpleasant conversations. Not that he’d been hiding that fact as well as he’d hoped. Inigo had already tried to talk to him about it once already.

But standing on the back porch, listening to his family chat happily with one another in the house and watching Leo wipe the sweat off his forehead while his boyfriends snuggled close on either side of him, Xander was beginning to revise his earlier prediction.

Things didn’t seem too bad.

And the firepit was good too. Homemade, clearly. But it would do.

“Later,” Leo was saying as Xander tuned in. “After we clean up.”

“What’s the point if we’re going to go outside again?” Owain asked, though he didn’t very put-out by whatever Leo was suggesting.

Leo said, “Because I feel disgusting. You two can do what you want.”

“Oh, no, we’ll help you clean up first,” Niles said playfully.

Leo glanced up in Xander’s direction, the straw of his milkshake resting on his lips. Xander pretended that he wasn’t paying attention. He wondered how soon he could move away without embarrassing either of them too badly.

His brother said something low that made Niles laugh and Owain squawk. Xander went to take a step back when he felt familiar hands wrap themselves around his waist. He lifted his arms on instinct, and Inigo swung around his side, one arm still resting around Xander’s hips.

“Everything up to standard, Captain?” Inigo asked.

Inigo pulled out nicknames like that a lot—Captain, General, Professor, Your Lordship, and so on. Admittedly, Xander hadn’t been overly fond of them when they’d first met, but he couldn’t say he disliked hearing those names coming from Inigo’s lips now. “Your Lordship” had been used in an argument once or twice before, certainly. But here Xander’s lips twitched playfully.

He pretended to think about it. “Yes, I suppose I can give this a passing grade.”

Inigo laughed, briefly squeezing Xander’s waist tighter.

“In that case, it was all me,” Inigo said.

“Lies!” Owain interrupted, turning away from Leo for a moment. “That fiend napped the afternoon away!”

Inigo shrugged. “It was worth a shot.” Then he turned to the rest of the group loitering inside the house. “Hey, everyone! Xander says the firepit passes muster!”

A collective cheer resounded from behind them. Xander shook his head, smiling fully this time.

Yes, he decided. It was going to be a good few days after all.

 

 

 

“Make sure you’re back before nightfall,” Leo reminded him. “We’re not going to wait for you if you’re late.”

“Don’t worry,” Niles said, an arm slung around Owain’s shoulder. “I’ll keep them on track.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Owain asked for the third time.

The group he’d scrounged up to explore the land behind the house was a decent size already. It consisted of Owain, Niles, Inigo, and Elise so far, but Owain really did like spending time with Leo too. It just wasn’t the same without him, even though Owain knew Leo couldn’t have cared less about “getting eaten alive by bugs.” Or so Leo liked to call it.

Leo, who laid across the couch in the living room with a book resting on his chest, wore a ghost of a smile. “As much as I enjoy poison ivy and sweating, I think I’ve already had my fill for the night.”

Elise and Inigo twin faces of interest mirrored one either from their spots on either side of the sliding back door. If Owain hadn’t known better, he almost would have suspected _they_ were the siblings here.

“Are we ready?” Elise asked eagerly. Inigo cocked his head with impatience.

Leo waved them on. “Go on, don’t let me hold you back.”

Well, if that was his final answer.

Owain practically skipped into the backyard in his eagerness to get the show on the road, but Niles lingered a moment longer to lean down and kiss Leo on the mouth before following. Inigo and Elise were ahead of the group, but Owain quickly took the lead on their expedition as they approach the tree line, and they seemed content to follow. Niles quickly caught up to Owain after shutting the back door behind them.

The sun was a little lower in the sky than Owain would have liked it to be, but that was what he got for listening to Leo’s insistence that they all take a shower before heading out again. Granted, they had needed a break after all that hard work, and Inigo and Elise had taken more time to get ready than either Owain or Niles had anyway.

There was probably an hour or so of good light left before they’d have to turn back. As excited as Owain was to stretch his legs and determine how far back the property extended after all, he figured that was plenty of time to quench his curiosity. Maybe they’d find a weird tree or a creek or something. As much as Owain wanted there to be more, he knew the reality was probably something different. He’d take whatever he could get.

“Sure you don’t want to stay here?” Owain asked Niles as they made their way towards the ever-thickening tree line. He was joking but also a little curious.

Niles bumped their shoulders together as they walked, making Owain stumble half a step. “I said I’d explore with you, didn’t I?”

A few feet behind them, Elise responded to something Inigo said by darting off to the side and performing a cartwheel. Inigo laughed and followed her up with a cartwheel of his own. They both sounded happy, and with Niles’s hand brushing his own with every step, Owain was finding it hard to keep his smile off his face.

“Then get ready to explore,” he said, “because we’re not going back tonight until we have a solid adventure under our belts.”

“Oh, I look forward to it,” Niles said dryly, humoring Owain.

Plenty of twigs snapped underfoot as they walked deeper into the woods. And they were _woods_ , not just a smattering of trees, surprisingly. As the house grew more distant behind them, the trees grew impossibly thicker and condensed. Their chosen trail wasn’t difficult to navigate in the least—Elise probably could have performed a few more cartwheels without much trouble if she really wanted to, despite the uneven terrain—but the landscape reminded Owain that they really were in the country after all, far away from real civilization.

In contrast to the dry yellow of the grass in the front yard, the woods were green and brown as far as they eye could see. Every step the four took crushed even more dry, brittle leaves underfoot. There wasn’t a lot of grass in the shadow of the trees, but there was a lot of moss, dirt, and dead leaves. Owain stepped carefully over a thick tree root and kept on his way.

There was no line denoting the end of Garon’s property and the start of someone else’s, but there hadn’t been any sign of any other properties in the area either, so Owain figured nobody else was going to be reporting them for trespassing anytime soon. There were trees, trees, and more trees as far as the eye could see. After several minutes, Owain couldn’t even see the main house behind them anymore. After twenty, they were well and deep into the woods.

It was beginning to look more and more like their adventure was going to consist of nothing more than an uneventful hike when Niles suddenly stopped to examine a tree. When Owain noticed, he stopped as well, giving Elise and Inigo time to catch up from where they had fallen behind. Those two were much too engrossed in their own conversation to keep up Owain’s pace.

“What’s up?” Owain asked.

Niles tilted his head and fingered a large wound in the trunk of one of the trees. The cut wasn’t very wide, but it was _deep_ , as though someone had come at the tree with a lot of force and used something very sharp to do so. Owain was no nature expert, but he quickly gathered that it would take one very strange animal to create a mark like that. Or one regular human with a tool.

“Strange,” Niles said quietly.

Elise and Inigo were getting closer. Owain squinted at the bark.

“Did a person do that?” Niles didn’t answer, but that wasn’t a no. Encouraged, Owain said, “Maybe somebody was testing out an axe?”

Even as he suggested it, the thought seemed strange. They were deep into the woods by now. Why test an axe this far in? Why not choose a tree closer to the edge of the woods? Or a fallen log? Why not cut down the tree entirely?

Niles jerked his head towards another tree, and when Owain turned, he found several more gouges in a tree slightly off their path. They were placed so haphazardly like that Owain was convinced they could in no way be claw marks. No creatures had claws like that.

“Huh,” he said. That was all there seemed to be to say.

The thought of someone coming all the way out there to whack a few trees without felling any of them seemed strange. But he couldn’t think of there being much more to it besides that. Owain wasn’t a nature expert. For all he knew, someone could have gone around chopping at these trees a week or even a month before. And it wasn’t like they seen anyone besides each other in the past day either. There weren’t even any neighbors for miles.

The cuts in the tree were strange, but that was all they were. Strange. Not particularly worrying on their own.

“Why’d you stop?” Inigo asked as he and Elise drew closer. With a shift of his weight, Niles practically managed to block the cut in the bark from sight entirely, but Inigo somehow still managed to spot it. He blanched. “Did a bear do that?”

Part of Owain wanted to spin a tale of a killer lying in wait amongst the trees for their next victim, but he stopped himself before the words left his mouth. Elise looked a little nervous at Inigo’s mention of a bear, and Owain didn’t want to ruin their walk to so.

They didn’t exchange glances, but Owain wasn’t surprised when Niles said, “You know bears are increasingly rare and don’t live in this area of the world, right?”

“Seriously?” Inigo said, sounding surprised. Niles began to walk again, and everyone else followed suit. “But bears all live in the woods, right? So…”

“I thought polar bears lived in the arctic?” Elise said.

The tips of Inigo’s bears grew pink. “Ah, well…”

“Elise is the smartest out of all of us,” Owain said, just to see Elise beam and Inigo flush with even more embarrassment. “You should be in college instead of Inigo, Elise.”

“You know what I meant!” Inigo defended.

“Bears may live in a variety of environments, but they don’t necessarily live _everywhere_ ,” Niles clarified. His smirk was the epitome of smug. Elise giggled. “These environments do, in fact, include the arctic.”

“Okay! I get it!”

Elise proceeded to try to comfort Inigo by listing all the times she had forgotten. Surprisingly, it seemed to make Inigo feel better, and the topic of the trees was quickly forgotten.

There was very little chance of anything actually dangerous happening even now that they had seen the strange cuts in the trees, but Owain made a mental note to keep an eye out for a “crazy axe murderer”—as Severa probably would have phrased it—anyway. And if Owain noticed Niles bumping into him a lot more when they walked because of how close he lingered, Owain didn’t comment.

In fact, the continuing trek further into the woods grew so dull that Owain began to contemplate suggesting they all turn around to make it back to the house in time for nightfall when he spotted the best thing he had seen all day.

It was a cave.

 _Actually_ , Owain mentally amended, it was the _opening_ to a cave. He couldn’t see how far the darkness reached back into the recesses of what he had initially mistaken for a very tall pile of rocks at first. The cave could have gone back thirty feet or three-hundred feet. He couldn’t tell.

What he _could_ tell was how cool it looked.

The first words out of Owain’s mouth when he registered the fact they were standing in front of a real live cave were, “Let’s explore!”

“What?” Inigo squawked. “No way! What if there’s a mountain lion or something in there?”

“A lion?” Elise echoed nervously. The sight of her anxious face gave Owain some pause.

Unimpressed, Niles said, “Have you forgotten what we discussed already? Bears and mountain lions are unlikely to thrive in these parts. It’s doubtful anything particularly menacing is actually waiting to pounce on us in there.” He smirked. “Aside from some rabid bats, of course.”

Inigo shuddered as Elise stuck her tongue out, looking displeased at the thought.

“Thank you, Niles,” Inigo said flatly as he hugged himself. “That’s very encouraging.”

Niles shrugged again, looking too pleased with himself.

“Aw, come on,” Owain said, trying to lighten the mood. “Caves are cool! They’re full of mystery! And treasure!”

“And asbestos,” Inigo added.

Owain frowned at him.

He said, “If you and Elise want to stay out here, I won’t blame you. I want to poke around a bit though.” For Inigo and Elise’s benefit, even though he was kind of hoping otherwise, he said, “There’s probably nothing in there anyway.” He turned. “Are you coming, Niles?”

“I can’t let you keep all the idiocy to yourself now, can I?” Niles said.

“Wait.” Elise still looked a little nervous, but her voice was strong. “I don’t want to sit out here while you guys have all the fun.”

Inigo made a face. “I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the word I’d use.”

Niles and Owain shared a glance. As much as Owain wanted to explore a mysterious cave in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t sure taking along the most favored child out of all of Leo’s siblings was the best idea.

Not that he didn’t like Elise, because he did. But on the off chance something happened, Owain also liked his limbs arranged the way they were.

“But…” Elise looked at the mouth of the cave. She slowly uncrossed her arms. “I don’t want to just sit around while you guys are exploring. If you’re going in, then so will I!”

Inigo held up his hands placatingly. “Aw, Elise, don’t feel pressured to join these losers. We can sit on some logs and take a break for a while.”

Elise seemed to consider it, but the ultimately shook her head.

“I don’t want to be left behind,” she said.

Inigo looked considering.

Then, before Owain could say making anyone feel left behind wasn’t their intention at all, Elise walked to the mouth of the cave and peered in. “Does anybody have a flashlight?”

With a bit of disappointment, Owain realized none of them did. But he did have his phone, which, despite the lack of internet or cell reception this far out, still had its uses. He pulled it out and flipped on the light. Niles followed in suit.

“Aw,” Elise pouted. “I left mine at the house.”

“Really?” Inigo asked as he turned on his own phone’s flashlight. “I’d never leave my phone anywhere.”

“Not everyone is you,” Owain said. Then, somewhat surprised that Inigo had pulled out his phone, he added, “You’re coming?”

Inigo shrugged, smiling self-deprecatingly. “Like Elise said, I can’t let you have all the fun.”

“The more, the merrier,” Niles said. “Or at least our odds of survival strengthen.”

Owain was already pushing into the cave with Elise when he heard Inigo say, “Okay, if I’m really coming along, you have got to stop making jokes like that.”

 

 

 

While everyone laid in their bedrooms napping or otherwise resting up in preparation for the evening’s bonfire, Severa snuck into the kitchen.

At least, she assumed everyone else was resting. Leo, Xander, and Corrin were upstairs doing whatever. Severa didn’t really know.

She knew for a fact, however, that Beruka and Camilla were in their bedroom, and that was what Severa was relying on for her surprise.

Squinting through the last few rays of light shining in through the kitchen window, Severa dug through some of the grocery bags they had left on the counter. The hotdogs had been stuffed in the fridge already, but everything else had been left out. She was pretty sure Camilla had spotted her sneakily checking out her own snacks in another lane while the rest of the group bought the supplies for the fire, but Severa told herself it was the thought that counted.

They had been waiting for Inigo, Elise, Owain, and Niles to return back from their walk before they started the cookout, but with the sun beginning to set and those lazy bums taking their sweet time, Severa was pretty sure they’d be making the fire pretty soon, regardless of whether or not the others had returned yet. Nobody wanted to start it in the dark, after all. At least Severa didn’t.

In the meantime, however, she was pretty sure those bonbons she had bought for Camilla would make a good surprise right about now. Bonbons were Camilla’s favorite snack, but Severa hoped Beruka might enjoy them too.

If she could find them, that was.

There weren’t _that_ many bags, she thought in frustration, but for some reason she just couldn’t find the discreet box of candy she’d bought after checking the first two. She knew she had set her bag on the counter with the others when they’d gotten home in order to hide it in plain sight. She just couldn’t tell the bags apart anymore.

Which meant Camilla’s surprise was in the third bag, Severa deduced. She reached out to grab it. The crinkle of the plastic was loud in the quiet kitchen.

Severa spotted the little red box she had been searching for approximately half a second before her body suddenly went rigid with unease.

Her stomach lurched. Severa stared into the bag, every nerve in her body suddenly on fire and not at all knowing why.

Behind her, Severa heard the softest of noises—a snuffle not unlike that of a pig’s.

Something inside her—some gut instinct she’d never known existed until now— _screamed_ at her to duck.

So she did.

Severa dropped to the floor just as a chipped, rusty machete embedded itself into the wooden counter right where she had been standing. Splinters flew through the air. Severa watched them fly in slow motion.

Her breath caught as her hands hit the cold tile. Severa stared at the weapon embedded in the wood. Then she followed that weapon to see it was attached to a large gray hand, and that hand was attached to a thick, muscled arm. Severa followed that too.

The person attached to that arm didn’t look human.

That was the first thing she noticed. On top of the gray skin, the hulking muscles, the way the body just looked all _wrong_ , Severa noticed how little it resembled any person she’d ever seen. For a split second she thought the monster standing above her didn’t even have a _face_ before she realized there was some kind of iron mask dotted with holes encasing its head entirely.

Somehow that realization was worse than it being faceless.

The person— _thing_ —standing in the kitchen was _big_. Large and strong and easily a foot taller than Severa, who already stood taller than most women she knew. The machete in its hand had been embedded into the counter so deeply that she was sure it could have taken her head clean off her shoulders if she hadn’t moved in time. It was a sheer miracle of instincts that had saved her.

For a moment, Severa’s breath caught. The world stood still. She was paralyzed with fear and the sudden appearance of a literal monster standing above her. For moment, not even the monster moved.

Then Severa screamed.

She screamed with everything she had. Long and loud, because she knew Camilla or Beruka or somebody else would hear her. Then, as the faceless _thing_ standing above her grunted in displeasure and yanked the machete out of the counter, Severa scrambled to her feet.

Time had ground to a halt before lurching to wakefulness like the quickening cogs of a machine as Severa had screamed. Now, as Severa pushed herself up, it began to drag like molasses.

By the time she had halfway risen, Severa realized she wouldn’t make it to her feet fast enough. Not if she didn’t want that thing to take another swing at her. She couldn’t steady herself and also have time to run away. Crouched low, Severa was trapped in the L shaped corner of the counters, and the creature was blocking her only way out. 

Severa’s brain worked rapid-fire as the creature reared back at her in slow motion.

She was already climbing to her feet. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t hit reverse. She couldn’t run away.

She couldn’t beat it in a fight either—not a weapon like that, not with how it _loomed_ above her. There wasn’t much she could do at all. There was a pretty could chance she was about to die, actually.

But Severa had never been helpless.

The creature was already in the midst of a downward swing by the time she was level with the counter. Severa reached back on instinct, searching for anything she could use. Her fingers wrapped around a smooth handle, and Severa yanked at it, ignoring the clatter of glass and plastic behind her. She chucked the heavy weight in her hand at the monster before her.

The thing she had grabbed turned out to be a clunky glass blender. It shattered across the creature’s face, and despite the mask, the creature staggered back with a growl. Severa pushed herself away from the counter with another scream.

She squeezed between the counter and the creature in a desperate bid to escape.

She nearly made it.

_“Severa!”_

Severa’s eyes zeroed in on the person in the kitchen archway. Camilla’s hair was somewhat messy from where she had clearly rushed out of bed. She stared over Severa’s shoulder with a horrified expression. Camilla looked positively stricken.

Heart beating wildly, Severa reached for her—

—only to be painfully pulled back, neck snapping, as thick fingers dug into one of her pigtails and _yanked_. Severa yelped from the pain and surprise.

The creature _yanked_ again, and Severa’s head jerked back so fast her teeth clacked together. Her throat was bared and vulnerable as she fell back on her heels, practically bending backwards from the sheer strength of the grip on her scalp. The ceiling blurred above her as tears gathered in the corner of her eyes.

 _Shit_ , Severa thought. So this was it.

As she registered the flash of rusty metal above her, Severa couldn’t tell if the pounding was all in her ears or if those were footsteps that she was hearing. Her scalp ached. Even as she struggled to escape the monster’s hold, she knew what was going to happen. She watched in fear as the jagged curve of the machete descended towards her exposed throat.

Then there was another flash above her, another blur.

Severa hadn’t realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut, but they shot open again when she heard the creature let out a pained growl and felt its grip on her hair slacken. She wrenched herself away immediately, throwing herself to the kitchen floor and out of its reach. Severa fell to her hands and knees, dimly registering a meaty sound and another pained snarl from behind her.

She flipped over onto her butt just in time to see Beruka yank her hatchet out of the creature’s shoulder, something brown spraying through in the air as Beruka wrenched her weapon out of its skin.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Severa said. She didn’t know when Beruka had gotten a hatchet, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Then she realized her tiny girlfriend was attempting to take out a creature easily four times her size with only a little hatchet to protect her.

To protect _her._

Severa had to get off the floor. She had to help. She moved to stand again, but this time Camilla’s voice stopped her.

 _“Move,”_ Camilla barked.

Rather than stand, Severa rolled to the side on instinct. Beruka jumped back and around the refrigerator to make room.

Severa righted herself just in time to see Camilla smash one of the wooden chairs from the kitchen table over the creature’s head.

It staggered back. Severa whooped.

Beruka was upon it in an instant, filling the space Camilla left as she backed away. Beruka took advantage of its dazed state and swung the hatchet directly into the side of the creature’s neck. The hatchet sunk in.

The creature gurgled with rage and pain, but thick, dark blood was already oozing out of the hole Beruka left in her wake as she wrenched the hatchet out of its jugular and backed away once more.

All three of them watched as the creature staggered back into the sink, flailing the machete around in hand with weakening strength. It fell to one of its knees as the muddy blood pouring out of its neck began to form a waterfall down its chest.

Severa wanted to gag, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of the creature dying before her.

It was inhuman. It was awful.

And Camilla wasn’t finished with it.

Severa and Beruka watched the monster carefully, standing far out of its reach, but Camilla boldly grabbed one of the remains of the kitchen chair—a chair leg that had broken unevenly at the end from the sheer amount of force with which Camilla had hit the creature with it before. She _stabbed_ the serrated end of the chair leg into the already open wound on its neck and _twisted_. Severa gasped at the awful, wet sound it made.

Camilla didn’t. She continued to twist her makeshift spear into the creature’s neck further, a determined look on her face. The creature howled. More dark blood sprayed out of the wound. The machete dropped to the floor with a clatter. The creature’s hands fell to its side, completely helpless as the life drained from its body. Camilla didn’t stop twisting the stake in the wound until the creature wobbled on its knees. When she finally did—as though she had been the only thing keeping the monster upright—the creature fell to the tile like a puppet with its strings cut and didn’t move again.

Severa didn’t realize she had stood up until she felt the cool countertop under her hands, keeping her steady. She didn’t even realize Beruka and Camilla were practically on top of her either until small hands on her cheeks forced her to look Beruka in the eye.

 _“Severa,”_ Beruka said, some barely contained emotion Severa had never heard from her bubbling under the surface of her voice. They stared at each other. “Severa.”

Severa took quick stock of herself. She felt… uninjured.

Not okay. But uninjured.

There was a smear of brown blood on Beruka’s cheek. There was even more blood on Camilla’s hands and her dark shirt.

Severa was grateful it was a dark shirt.

Someone came skidding into the kitchen. Several people, if the low gasps and curses Severa heard were any indication. She didn’t turn her head.

“It’s dead, right?” Severa asked, realizing she was shaking slightly under Beruka’s hands. Now that the action was over, her heart felt like it was beating faster than ever. “It’s… really dead?”

Camilla wrapped her arms around Severa and pulled her close to her chest. Severa buried herself in the comfort happily. Beruka was practically plastered against both their sides. Severa felt squished between them.

“Are you alright?” Camilla asked. Severa managed a quick nod of her head against Camilla’s collarbone.

A voice that sounded a lot like Leo’s said, “What was that scream— _what the fuck_.”

Almost simultaneously, she heard Corrin gasp and Xander’s low swear.

“Are you alright?” Corrin asked, rushing up to them. Xander and Leo asked more or less the same thing in their haste and barely concealed panic, but Severa could only focus on so much at once. “What happened? Should I call the police?”

“No,” Beruka said. Her voice held no room for argument. “Not yet.”

 _Why the fuck not,_ Severa thought. She had no idea what the hell that thing was or what even had just happened. The police did not sound like a such a bad idea right now. She was a bit too busy trying to quickly gather the remains of her sanity back up again to reply, however.

“Is that… a costume?” Xander sounded unsure. Then his voice was steely, the uncertainty gone. “Did that person sneak in here? Are any of you hurt? What happened here?”

Leo carefully crept around them to get a better look at the still corpse of the monster. The look on his face conveyed exactly how disgusted Severa felt.

Not tearing his eyes away from the corpse, Leo said, “You did this?”

He clearly meant Camilla and Beruka. There was an unnamable tone in his voice.

“This…” Leo’s lips were thin. “That’s not a human.”

He said it like a fact.

Just like that the dam broke. Voices clamored over one another; voices asking questions, giving half answers, nervous reminders that the others weren’t back yet, and were they in trouble? Severa heard Corrin nervously note that the back door was open. She heard Camilla, between pressing kisses to the top of Severa’s head, say that they had done what they had to do. Xander and Leo were both testing their phones, their lips pressed together in tight mirrored lines.

She heard the phrase “that thing” more than once. It felt like there was a panic barely bubbling under the surface, especially with Elise and the others gone. Corrin suggested going out to look for them just as Leo, sounding regrettable, said that would be too foolish. Camilla’s grip on Severa and Beruka tightened at that.

All of them were hyperaware of the creature laying dead on the floor next to them. Even the ones who weren’t looking. Severa knew it.

She also felt more and more stifled by the minute. There were too many voices, too much _touching_. She just wanted a moment to herself.

She looked at Beruka. Beruka, the only one besides Severa who hadn’t started speaking rapid-fire so far, looked back and minutely shook her head.

“Everyone, be quiet,” Beruka said calmly.

Nobody seemed to hear her.

With an added hiss, Beruka repeated, “Everyone, be _quiet_.”

Severa wasn’t sure she had ever heard Beruka raise her voice before. She both was and wasn’t surprised when everyone listened.

There was a moment of silence.

Stiffly, Xander said, “What are you—”

Beruka raised her finger to her lips in a “hush” motion. Xander stopped talking. He didn’t seem to know what Beruka wanted, but Severa sure did. She strained herself to listen. The only thing she heard was the soothing sound of Camilla’s heartbeat.

It was only after Beruka’s hand failed to drop back to her side that Severa realized that Beruka wasn’t just telling them to be quiet by pressing her finger to her lips. Beruka was also pointing to the ceiling.

Severa looked up. She didn’t see anything unusual. Corrin and Camilla took Severa’s movement as a cue to look up themselves with Xander and Leo following in suit, but none of them seemed to spot anything amiss either.

With soundless footsteps, Beruka drifted through the kitchen archway and into the front hall. Camilla reluctantly allowed Severa to untangle from her grasp in order to follow. She didn’t drop Severa’s hand, however. Severa was aware of Corrin, Leo, and Xander quietly following behind them, but Severa held eyes for Beruka only.

Beruka stopped at the foot of the stairs. Severa couldn’t help but glance at the back door as she passed through the kitchen archway. It was hard to see around the corner without venturing further into the living room, but she felt the warm night breeze on her skin. Like Corrin had said, the back door was definitely open.

They stood in the front hall silently. Listening.

After a moment, Beruka stiffened. She pointed up again.

Severa looked up the stairs. She saw the old fashioned wooded hallway leading to the bedrooms and nothing else.

Then she heard it too.

Behind her, Leo and Corrin gasped. Camilla and Xander drew in sharp breaths. Severa squeezed Camilla’s hand and looked at Beruka with determination. The hatchet still dangled from Beruka’s fingertips.

She was still shaken from the fight in the kitchen, but Severa pushed that aside. She could panic later. They had things to do now.

Somewhere in the ceiling, there was another thump.

 

 

 

“Do these walls appear manmade to anyone else?” Niles asked, running his hands along the too smooth side of the cave. Niles may have only had one eye, but with the help of their phone’s flashlights, even he could see well enough in the dark.

They had been walking for several minutes. Niles would have insisted they turn back if they had encountered any forks in the path. It wouldn’t have been due to get lost underground and worry Leo even more, after all, not to mention how unfortunate it would have been to die in a cave.

But it had only been a straight path and a slight downward slope for what felt like a mile. It seemed like they had been walking in one direction for just as long as it had taken them to find the cave in the first place.

It was certainly going to be dark by the time they retraced their steps. Niles mentally sent an apology to Leo for making him wait and possibly worry. But Niles had promised to give Owain an adventure, after all.

Perhaps not to this extent. But considering how down and out Leo had been the past few days, Niles preferred to give at least one of them a good time.

So it was possible Niles had been a bit too indulgent this time.

Well, everyone had _some_ flaws.

Such as waiting too long to notice the strangely even walls and floor of the cave, he would reflect later.

“Oh, good,” Inigo said, his voice echoing. “So it’s not just me then.”

He was sticking close to Elise, Niles noted with approval. It was good to be in pairs for now. The strange axe marks in the trees earlier still bothered him. That was why Niles had been sticking close to Owain since they found them, though now that they were surrounded by stone on most sides, Owain had made his way to the front of the group, several feet ahead of Niles.

Elise made a “huh” sound.

“These walls are too smooth to be natural,” Niles clarified for her. “Natural caves have more crevices and uneven foundations, and the path shouldn’t be so straight. Somebody created this cave themselves.”

And then rather than block off the entrance with a door of some kind, they had disguised it as a natural cave opening instead. Such a move had been a gamble. It stuck out less, sure, but it didn’t keep curious adventurers from poking their noses into the wrong sort of business.

Niles was no idiot. He occasionally fancied himself to be rather clever, actually. There was only one person for miles around who had come to this area regularly and could have discreetly managed a task like this.

The only question now was to find out why.

Perhaps curiosity was another flaw of Niles’s as well.

“But wait,” Elise said, wrinkling her nose, “why would anyone make a cave?”

“Let’s find out,” Niles suggested. He slyly grinned back at her.

While they’d been speaking, Owain, oddly quiet, had somehow gotten even farther ahead. His silhouette was barely visible in the beam of their flashlights. When Niles noticed how far ahead Owain had gotten, he frowned.

“Owain,” he said as loudly as he dared. “Stay close.”

It was true the only directions were forward or backward with no chance of something sneaking up on them from the side, but Niles still didn’t want to make anyone further down the cavern aware of their presence.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting. Garon was dead, after all. He had become a very private man in his last few years especially, and Niles didn’t put much stock in the thought that he had told anyone else about his excavation hobbies.

But hey. Maybe he’d been wrong about that bear thing after all.

Owain’s silhouette turned. His light was pointed at his feet. Niles was pretty sure Owain was looking over his shoulder.

“I think there’s a room down here,” Owain said. His voice was slightly less boastful than usual.

“Room?” Niles echoed, curiosity getting the better of him. “Not another cavern?”

Owain shook his head as they approached. “No, a room. You were right. This place looks manmade.”

As they got closer, Niles realized the path curved to the left and Owain stood at the bend. It was the first sign that the cave wasn’t just an endless straight line forever.

Owain shined his light down the bend.

“It looks empty,” he said right before he disappeared around the corner.

Niles cursed under his breath and rushed after him, Elise and Inigo making surprised noises at his heels.

Inigo called out after them. “Owain! Don’t run off on your own!”

Niles turned the corner and ran right into Owain’s back. He stumbled back as Owain stumbled forward. Owain turned to look at him with a cheeky grin, phone light still lowered to point as his feet.

“Sorry,” Owain said. He squinted as Inigo and Elise rounded the corner, shining their lights in his face. “But hey, look!”

Niles gave him an unimpressed stare. It was Elise who noticed the room first and, awed, said, “What in the world is this place?”

He looked around the room. And it was really, truly, a _room_ , not a cavern.

In fact, despite the dark, dank walls and the lack of light, it looked almost like a doctor’s office.

It wasn’t a very large room, but it was large enough. Niles scanned the walls carefully. There was a small set of cabinets pressed against the wall, and the shelves above it were lined with jars. Differently shaped lumpy things floated in the yellow liquid in the jars. Niles made a note to examine those more closely in a moment.

What was unmistakably a surgery table had been placed in the middle of the room. Niles stepped closer to it as Elise, Inigo, and Owain began poking around elsewhere. The room was sparsely decorated, but it filled Niles to the brim with questions.

There were old and browned stains on the surgery table, Niles immediately noted, as well as what appeared to be body straps on either end. Something flashed under the table as his light passed over it, and Niles looked down. A tray of scalpels, scissors, and other such utensils sat underneath, looking as though they had been haphazardly put away. He frowned.

“What on earth would this be used for?” Inigo said as he opened one of the cabinet drawers. Niles turned just in time to see Inigo pull out something large and metal. He hazarded a guess that it was some kind of specialized surgery tool. It resembled a pair of pliers. Inigo turned it over in the light. “Who lived down here, a vampire?”

Owain reached past him and pulled out a handsaw, squinting. The edges looked rusty.

“You think a vampire would need tools like this?” he asked, sounding amused. Then he made a face at the handsaw. “What are these stains?”

Inigo yelped and dropped the pliers. “Ew, there’s something on them!”

“Could you two be any louder?” Niles said pointedly. Inigo and Owain both winced. They side-eyed each other and began to whisper, no doubt blaming the other for being too loud. Niles rolled his eyes and looked for Elise.

He found her running her hands along one of the stone walls.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for a light switch,” Elise answered simply. The tip of her tongue was stuck out in concentration.

Niles looked up. Above the surgery table hung a lone ceiling lamp he had failed to notice before. He nodded.

“Good eyes,” he said. Elise shot him a quick smile with pride, then returned to her search.

Niles looked around. His mind raced to determine what the point of such a hidden room would have been. An underground surgery center in the middle of nowhere—what was the point? While the surgery table had been new at some point and the tools didn’t look very old, they had clearly all been used. None of it was state of the art. With the straps on the table that had clearly been used to hold someone down, the room resembled something more akin to a torture chamber than a doctor’s office like he’d first thought. The thought sent chills along Niles’s spine.

The sooner they got back to Leo, the better. He didn’t want to stick around here for much longer.

As Inigo and Owain moved away from the shelves, Niles stepped towards them, examining the jars closely. He had just enough time to realize with mild horror and resignation that the lumps floating in the jars looked suspiciously like half dissolved organs when he heard the snap of something metal and Owain’s pained cry.

_“Shit!”_

Niles’s head snapped to the source of the sound. His heart skipped a beat. “Owain!”

A wild look around gave him a clear shot of Elise’s wide-eyed face and Inigo’s back but turned up no Owain. Niles followed their line of sight and caught a glimpse of Owain crouched low to the floor, clutching his leg. He and Inigo were stuffed in a particularly dark corner Niles hadn’t noticed before.

Inigo crouched carefully by Owain’s side, hands hovering in the air nervously. Niles still couldn’t see what was wrong. He darted around the other side of the surgery table to get a better look right as Inigo hissed, “Shit, is it broken?”

Elise got a better look at what happened before Niles did. He heard her let out a quiet _“Oh no”_ as he pushed past her.

What Niles had originally taken to be a particularly dark patch of stone had, in fact, been a narrow passageway continuing deeper into the cave system, and Owain had collapsed in it. Owain’s phone laid screen side down on the floor like Owain had dropped it there, its beam of light still aimed up towards the ceiling so it illuminated his pale face. Owain’s hand were grasping at his foot. For good reason, Niles grimly thought.

The mouth of an animal trap had clamped down around Owain’s ankle, engulfing his foot entirely. Its thick teeth dug into his bare skin. Rivulets of blood had already welled up and had begun running down his leg, soaking into the formerly white fabric of Owain’s sock. To Niles’s relief, the trap didn’t look nearly as dirty or used as the other instruments they had found so far. That relief was short lived.

Niles didn’t know a lot about hunting but he knew a lot about illegal activity, and even though animal traps like this weren’t legal in most places, they usually weren’t _that_ dangerous around humans. Sure, they could do a lot of damage to a more vulnerable animal and it would hurt like hell if you got your foot stuck in one, but more often than not human victims walked away with nothing more than a nasty bruise and a bit of a limp.

This trap, however, had clearly been modified to do more than just catch a creature. It metal teeth had clearly been sharpened to a point by someone who hadn’t liked the dull, almost rounded tips of most foot traps. Niles didn’t know much else about animal traps personally, but he would have bet anything that this trap’s spring had been altered to close with more force than normal as well. The snap of its jaws as it had clamped around Owain’s foot had sounded _bad_.

Foot traps were meant to hold animals, not force them to lose a limb or worse. That was just bad for business.

This trap one clearly had been built to hurt.

Niles had no idea if Owain’s ankle was broken or not. Even if it wasn’t, he’d need stitches. The trap’s sharp teeth dug into the meat of Owain’s ankle much deeper than Niles would have liked.

“Isn’t stuff like this supposed to be illegal?” Inigo said, sounding like he was trying to stay calm and failing. Niles ignored Inigo and pushed past him as well. “Careful! Owain, stop tugging!”

Rather than give Owain the same order twice, Niles forcefully pried Owain’s fingers away from his ankle. His fingertips were slick with blood, and Niles forced himself to ignore both the hot slickness of Owain’s blood and the way Owain winced in pain as Niles took his hands.

“You’ll cut yourself,” he said, barely biting back his frustration. Not at Owain but at Garon. What the hell had that old geezer been doing down here that required him to put up modified animal traps?

As soon as Owain was free, they were getting out of here.

“Get it _off_ ,” Owain said, his voice low. He gritted his teeth.

Niles couldn’t blame him, but it was more important that they keep calm now. Like everything else so far, Niles forcefully ignored the wild pounding of his own heart and the part of him that wanted to hastily rip the metal out of Owain’s skin with his bare hands.

“I will,” Niles said firmly. “Just wait a moment.”

“But—”

“I know,” Niles said, as soothingly as he could. He forced himself to look away from the animal trap clamped around Owain’s ankle and instead at Owain himself. “But we need to be smart, okay? We’ll get it off in a moment.”

Owain stared for a moment, then nodded quickly. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Niles gave his hand a comforting squeeze in return. Then he looked over his shoulder to Inigo and Elise.

“You need to get back to the house,” Niles said firmly.

“No.”

It was Elise who spoke up, and all of their faces turned to look at her with visible surprise. Elise’s face was pale and pinched, but her voice was firm.

“Inigo should go.” She looked at him. “You can do it alone, right?”

Owain caught on first, despite the pain. “B-Because you’re going to be a doctor someday, right?”

“If Elise is staying, then I’m staying,” Inigo jumped in. He seemed to have collected himself a bit in the past minute. “I’m not abandoning you.”

Niles rolled his eyes, annoyed.

“ _Nobody_ is abandoning anybody,” he said firmly. Owain squeezed his hand—for comfort or as a reminder, Niles couldn’t tell, but he reigned himself in anyway. “But _somebody_ is going back to the house and letting everyone know what happened so we can get help. There’s probably a first aid kit there somewhere, and we need to be ready to go to the hospital.”

“Hospital?” Owain echoed with some dread. Niles ignored him.

They also may have needed help getting Owain back to the house in the first place, but Niles was holding off on that judgement until they could assess how bad the damage was. He’d carry Owain first before Niles let him try to walk with an injury that bad.

“Then Inigo can go,” Elise said again. “I’m staying to help.”

Niles gave her a stern look. “Now is not the time to play nurse. This is serious.”

“Seriously painful,” Owain reminded them with a grimace. “So if you guys could wrap this up…”

Surprisingly, Elise didn’t back down.

“I’m not playing anything,” she said. “I’m _going_ to be a doctor one day. And I don’t know what you do in your spare time, but I study. A lot.”

That wasn’t an exaggeration, Niles knew. There were a lot of childish interests Elise still held onto, but her fascination with medical practice wasn’t one of them. It had jarred him more than once to see her doing cartwheels on the lawn one moment and then catch her calmly watching documentary videos of bloody surgery the next.

She started listing her supposed qualifications off on her fingers. “And I took that first aid class earlier this summer. Leo even got me that textbook for my birthday. I’ve read it cover to cover.”

“So now you think you’re an expert,” Niles said. He heard Owain’s breath hitch in pain.

“No,” Elise countered, a little firmer than he had expected. “But I might know a little more than you.”

They looked at each other.

Despite the circumstances, a little part of Niles was a little proud to hear her stand her ground. There were times when Elise had run to her family so they could deal with a “scary” thing for her, but this wasn’t one of them.

Besides, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure how well sending Elise and her notorious night blindness out to find her way back to the house in the dark would work out.

“Can we get this thing off my leg already?” Owain asked in a pained voice. Owain had started to sweat, Niles noticed. He was also breathing a little faster than normal.

Niles’s frown deepened.

Suddenly Inigo appeared again. Niles hadn’t realized he’d left.

“Here,” Inigo said, holding out a small bundle of bandages. “These were in one of the drawers. I think they’re clean.”

Elise gave the roll a quick inspection. She nodded to Niles.

He made a decision.

“Elise, come here,” Niles said. Elise immediately crouched down. “I’m going to take this trap off, and you’re going to bandage his leg as soon as he’s free. Inigo, you need to run back to the house.” The thought that this might not have been the only trap in the area crossed his mind. They might have accidentally avoided the others so far. “Watch your step.”

Inigo grimaced.

As he told her to stay, Niles thought Elise looked relieved for a brief moment, but then it passed. She took the bandages with a serious expression and nodded.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Inigo asked. He gave Owain a long look, all but ignoring Niles.

Niles opened his mouth to snap a reply, but Owain beat him to it.

“Don’t worry about it.” Owain’s grin was much more pained that it should have been, but he was clearly trying. “I promise to forgive you if I die while you’re gone.”

Inigo didn’t seem to like the joke. “Who said anything about dying?”

"Hey, I'll be fine," Owain assured him. "Just make sure Leo isn't _too_ mad at me, okay?"

That, Inigo seemed able to handle, though he didn't look happy about it.

After another glance in Elise’s direction, Inigo circled around Niles and crouched by Owain’s side, grabbing Owain’s shoulder. He leaned in close to Owain’s ear and whispered something. Owain gave him a jerky nod in return.

Niles wished he would _leave_ already. The faster Inigo left, the faster they could get help. But far be it for Niles to be the one to intrude on the "best friends" having a moment in a time of crisis.

Inigo whispered one last thing with a strained smile that made Owain bark out a surprised laugh. That laugh immediately turned into a jerk of pain as he accidentally jostled his leg in the trap. Niles sent Inigo a glare, but Inigo didn’t seem to notice. He gave Owain a worried look and a quick “I’ll be back,” and then he rushed out the way they came.

Niles did the mental math. They had walked into the woods for how long—half an hour or so? And then they had walked into the cave for some time. Leaving the cave was a straight shot. No way for Inigo to get lost there. That was the easy half of the journey. How long would it be until Inigo returned with help? An hour? No doubt longer if it took a while for help to find its way in the dark.

First things first, Niles knew. Owain had to get his leg free. Then they had to slow the bleeding. Then they could slowly make their way back to the house themselves and hope they ran into help on the way.

They had a plan. They’d be fine.

Niles breathed out through his nose. He dropped Owain’s hand and loosely grasped the jaws of the foot trap instead. With Owain’s ankle in the way, Niles had enough room to squeeze his fingers through the gap between the jaws.

The teeth of the trap were sharp. Very sharp. It probably would have been smarter to find some kind of rags or something to protect his hands before he did this, but they had already wasted so much time with talking. Niles didn’t want Owain hurting for any longer than strictly necessary.

He looked at Elise out of the corner of his eye. His main focus was on the trap and Owain’s bloody ankle.

“When I open this, pull out your leg,” Niles told Owain. To Elise, he said. “Make sure he gets clear.”

Elise nodded. Niles sent Owain one last wry look.

“I hope you’re up to date on your tetanus shots,” he said. That earned him a watery smile.

Then he began to pry apart the trap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings for this chapter: References to Past Character Death (Garon), Mild Suggestive Language, Implied Sexual Content, Depictions of Violence, Monster Death, Animal Traps (i.e. illegal metal foot traps/leg traps for ensnaring animals), Leg Injury, and Caves.
> 
> The next/final chapter for this fic will go up sometime next week as I finish editing it! That said, I would really, really appreciate reviews and comments below! Alternatively, feel free to send me an an ask over on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) It took a long time to write this fic, so either one would be really appreciated!
> 
> See you then!


	2. And So It Goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter two! Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! And thanks to my friend Kimium who cheered me on every step of the way! I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Like the last chapter, you can hit the link to the bottom notes to read some general content warnings about this chapter if need be. It's about on par with the first chapter, I believe, but better safe than sorry!

“There’s no landline, no cell service—”

“Splitting up is the _worst_ idea.”

“The police need to be made aware—”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere. It would take at least half an hour, probably longer—”

“That’s way too long.”

“—and the worst thing they’ve probably ever dealt with is a cat stuck in a tree.”

Everyone’s voices were low and strained. Nobody was yelling, which was a plus, but it was only the knowledge that there was likely another monster creeping around just above their heads that kept them from getting too loud. Nobody was yelling, but nonetheless, it was an argument.

Nonetheless, there was fear in every one of their voices.

Xander wore a very pinched expression. He kept glancing toward the back door as though someone were going to burst in at any moment. He might have been waiting for the others or perhaps another monster in equal measure.

It _had_ been a monster, Severa told herself again. Looking at it in the moment, she’d been so sure, but now with several minutes between her and the adrenaline, she wavered. But Camilla had said it was a monster, so it had to be. Severa told herself so again and again.

She wanted to take another peek at it. Just once. Just to be sure.

“Then what would you suggest?” Xander asked, his voice low and strained. “Because there are not a lot of options at our disposal. We are out of our depth here.”

Camilla followed his gaze. She was still holding Severa close under her arm and rubbing circles into Severa’s shoulder. “Elise is out there. She’s in danger.”

“We don’t know that there are more of them.”

“We don’t know that there aren’t,” Camilla countered. “There is _something_ in the attic, and I think we all know what it is.”

She squeezed Severa’s shoulder as the words left her mouth.

In the attic, Severa thought. She’d heard it that first night—the monster upstairs. She’d made it into a joke about Owain’s sex life. If only she’d known then.

“But we can’t go running around in the dark,” Leo said, looking unhappy. “Not without a plan.”

Corrin and Beruka hadn’t said anything in a while. Or if they did, Severa hadn’t noticed. She was barely paying attention to the discussion at all. She’d felt strangely disconnected ever since Camilla and Beruka had killed the monster that had been trying to kill her. It was like her brain couldn’t quite catch up to the moment.

She had already tried to go back into the kitchen to look at it once, to be sure of what it was, but Camilla had steered her away. Severa wasn’t sure what to do with herself now. Her head felt fuzzy, but there was a buzzing along her spine that said she needed to _know_.

She couldn’t go back into the kitchen, but there was another place she wanted to look at again too. She remembered something she’d seen earlier.

Severa ducked out from under Camilla’s arm. Camilla opened her mouth to say something, but when she saw Severa was headed for the office instead of the kitchen or the back door, Camilla let her go. She looked wary, and Severa felt distantly guilty. Then she ducked into Garon’s tiny office and all she felt was determined.

The office hadn’t changed since yesterday when she’d poked her head in with Beruka. It was still dusty. There were still strange books on the shelves. A well-read copy of _Frankenstein_ still sat open on the desk.

A quick flip through the novel to the back cover provided just what she’d been looking for.

Severa picked up the blue sticky note and examined it. The number three had been written in the middle of the note with no other additional information added to provide context. It had been underlined twice and circled once like it meant something.

 _3_ , the note read. Severa stared at it.

Then she flipped it over. As expected, there was nothing else written on it. Another quick scan of the book didn’t provide anything new either. On its own, the note could have meant anything.

But considering the note had been stuffed away in a copy of _Frankenstein,_ Severa was almost positive it meant something.

There was a soft knock on the open doorway behind her. Severa nearly jumped out of her skin as she spun around.

“Sorry,” Corrin said softly, looking guilty. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

Their eyes wandered around the office for a moment, taking in the cramped space and numerous books before settling back on Severa.

Severa breathed in evenly through her nose, forcing her pounding heart to calm down.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Really?” Corrin said, taking a few steps closer with a sympathetic face. “Because, you know, it’s okay if you’re not.” They chuckled good-naturedly. “I mean, I’m not even sure I am, and you faced something a lot worse.”

Sharp, sudden annoyance bloomed in Severa’s chest. It was the most vibrant thing she’d felt in minutes.

“What do _you_ know?” she snapped.

The sight of Corrin’s hurt frown and downtrodden eyes tugged on something in her. Belatedly, Severa realized she felt awake again. _Frankenstein_ grew heavy in her hand.

“Sorry,” Corrin said. They took a step back. “You’re right. I’ll give you some space.”

Severa sighed. She leaned back against the desk, shaking the last of the cobwebs from her head. Everything still felt weird, but less so than before. She felt also vaguely guilty. She and Corrin weren’t exactly close, but…

“No, wait.”

Corrin paused, looking curious.

“Sorry,” Severa said, looking at the floor. “I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay,” Corrin said in that gentle way of theirs that made Severa want to either cry or yell. “I get it.”

Severa didn’t think they did, but she didn’t want to push it. She waved the copy of _Frankenstein_ between them as an excuse not to say anything more about it. “Do you know what this is?”

Corrin took the book from her hand and examined the cover.

“I think we had to read this my sophomore year,” they said.

“It was your dad’s,” Severa said bluntly, causing Corrin to look up. “This is all his stuff, obviously. But it’s pretty weird.”

“Weird?” Corrin echoed.

Severa gestured to the books on the shelves. “It’s all medical textbooks and occult stuff. Like, seriously. Dark magic.” She held up the note. “This was in that book.”

Corrin looked at it, frowning. “It’s just the number three.”

“Yeah, but it was in _Frankenstein_ ,” Severa said. “Your dad marked that thing up to hell and back, by the way. He clearly read it a lot.” She watched Corrin open the book and run their finger along a highlighted line. Corrin’s expression grew even more confused. Severa continued, “I really think it means something. Like maybe there’s three of them.”

Corrin looked up again. “Three of—”

“Those _things_ ,” Severa spat. She was getting ahead of herself. She sighed. “Look, your dad was into some weird shit, okay? And he had a lot of money, and I know he wasn’t dumb. He wasn’t the best to you guys either.”

Maybe this was the wrong time to be saying this, the wrong _person_ to be saying it too, but Severa couldn’t stop.

“So if you don’t believe me, whatever. But I really think your dad had something to do with that monster in the kitchen.”

She waited, tense. Corrin’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.

After a moment, Corrin slowly said, “In what way do you think…”

“I think he made them,” Severa said matter-of-factly. “Or—he at least knew they were here. Why else would he have all these weird books? Why else would he order that you guys stay here for a few days now that he’s gone and can’t be charged with anything?” She looked at Corrin, hard. “That’s more than enough time to get yourselves hurt.”

Or worse.

Severa shuddered at the memory of that thing cornering her. Her scalp still throbbed. There was definitely worse it could have done.

“No,” Corrin said instantly, looking pale. They clutched _Frankenstein_ to their chest. “No, Father would have never. He…”

They didn’t sound sure.

Severa barreled on.

“Nobody else lives within at least a dozen miles of this place,” she said. “Probably more. There’s tons of woods to hide things in. He made it a provision in his will that you guys all but _had_ to spent time here. There’s a _cellar_ under the house that Beruka said was chained shut. There’s _absolutely_ something in the attic, and no matter what it is, there’s no way your dad didn’t know about it!”

There were other things too, probably, but Severa was running out of fingers to count on. She realized how loud she had gotten and made an effort to lower her voice too late. Corrin stared back at her with something akin to hurt in their eyes.

“Look,” Severa said, rubbing her arm. It wasn’t cold, but she had goosebumps anyway. “I’m not going to lecture you on family stuff or how you view your parents, okay? I don’t really have a leg to stand on for a lot of that stuff anyway.” This wasn’t about her this time anyway. “I know you probably loved your dad, and I’m really sorry. But you have to admit a lot of this only adds up if he was doing something… not right.”

Severa was beginning to lose steam. With Corrin watching her and not saying much, she wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t know if they were about to fight or what.

So she waited. Corrin’s fingers curled and uncurled around the spine of the book. Their eyes flickered to the floor.

Eventually Corrin said, “I… think you’re probably right.”

Their words nearly floored Severa.

“You _do_?”

She nearly swallowed her tongue. Severa knew she sounded surprised. Corrin didn’t comment on that though. They just looked up at her with a new determination.

“I do,” Corrin said, nodding with growing strength. “I don’t want to, but… you make good points.”

They turned their head towards the shelf, examining the strange and sometimes absent titles that lined the wood.

“I did— _do_ love Father a lot,” Corrin said. “And I know he was good, once. But… I know there were a lot of things he didn’t do right either.” They reached out and touched the bookshelf gently with their fingertips. “You know I don’t have the best memory. But I remember the custody battle with Elise.”

Corrin seemed far away for a moment. Severa pressed her lips shut.

Then Corrin said, “So I know Father didn’t always do the right thing.” They turned back to Severa, dropping their hand to their side. “But I know he always knew what was happening under his roof too. So you’re right that he was probably involved in all this.”

That seemed almost too easy. Severa’s brain was searching for the catch.

“Are you sure?” Severa asked, unwanted hesitance creeping into her tone. “Don’t you need to think about it some more?”

Corrin shook their head. “No, I trust you. You make a pretty compelling case.” They smiled slightly. “Besides, there’s a monster in the kitchen, so I think we’re allowed to bend the rules of believability a bit.”

That was… a fair point, Severa conceded.

There were still voices coming from the living room, and Corrin took a step towards them.

“Come one,” they said. “Let’s tell the others.”

Severa reached out, grabbing their wrist before they completely turned. “Hey,” she said. “How are you so calm about this?”

A good portion of Severa wanted to _flip out_ , but aside from seeming a bit shaken, Corrin didn’t look anywhere near as bad as how Severa felt.

“I don’t know,” Corrin admitted, letting Severa hold their wrist still. _Frankenstein_ dangled from their other hand. “I don’t feel very calm.” They smiled, a feat Severa wasn’t sure she could accomplish. “I feel pretty scared, truthfully.”

Severa snorted with a roll of her eyes. She relaxed marginally. “Yeah, well, you’re holding it together pretty well.”

“Thanks.” Corrin smiled wider. “I don’t think I’d be doing very well without you guys, though. Without Xander, Camilla, Leo, or even you and Beruka, I’m pretty sure I’d be in real trouble.”

“ _Me?”_ Severa echoed, vaguely surprised.

She remembered what had happened in the kitchen. That had been _all_ Camilla and Beruka. All Severa had done was sit there like an idiot while everyone else put themselves in danger for her.

“Yes, you,” Corrin said. They twisted their wrist in Severa’s grasp so they were holding hands instead of only Severa holding their wrist. “You’re really brave, Severa. I wish I had the kind of courage you did.”

There was something impressive about Corrin that Severa had always admired but could never put her finger on. Now, she still wasn’t sure she could name it, but she was pretty sure it had something to with the way Corrin brought people together and could make even the worst flood seem like nothing more than a manageable stream. Severa had never had Corrin work their magic on her before, but she was pretty sure they were doing it now.

Having someone look at you with complete and total trust—it was a little daunting.

But after a moment’s adjustment, Severa decided it wasn’t too bad.

“Yeah, well.” Severa squeezed their hand back and managed a lopsided smile of her own. It was small, but it was there. She hoped Corrin couldn’t feel the way her hand shook. “I wish a lot of things about you too.”

Corrin looked decidedly startled. Severa suddenly realized how her words had sounded.

“Not like that!” she said quickly. “I don’t mean I wish you were different! I mean I wish _I_ —Ugh.”

She dropped Corrin’s hand and covered her face. How embarrassing. They were having a moment, and Severa had gone and mucked it up like usual.

Instead of leaving, however, Corrin did the most surprising thing of all. They laughed.

Severa peeked out between her fingers as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s alright,” Corrin said with a few giggles. “I get what you mean.”

Severa huffed, dropping her hands to her sides. “Like that,” she groaned. “I always say everything _wrong_. I wish I could talk like you or Xander. You always say exactly what you mean. And _you_ especially never come off like a jerk.”

Corrin made a sympathetic face. “Oh, Severa, you’re never a jerk.”

Severa gave them a flat look. Corrin winced and continued.

“I mean, you’re not really _purposely_ mean. And you don’t usually mean it anyway,” they reassured her. “But there really isn’t anything wrong with the way you speak. We always understand each other in the end.” They smiled again. “We all have different styles of communicating, and that’s okay. Besides, you’re always saying the things I wish I could. It probably took a lot of courage for you to confront me the way you did just now. I admire that.”

Severa sniffed wetly. She swallowed past the tightness in her throat.

“Thanks,” she said, eyes roaming the floor again so she didn’t have to look Corrin in the eye. She changed the subject. “What about everyone that isn’t here? Aren’t you worried about them?”

She was still a little awed at Corrin’s calm demeanor.

“Of course,” Corrin said, looking surprised Severa had even asked. “I’m really worried about everyone else, especially Elise. I _really_ hope they’re okay. But…” They breathed in, then out. “But I know they’re with each other, and I know they’ll take care of each other. So I’m feeling way better than if I knew they were alone.”

After a beat, Severa nodded. That made sense. It was because of Camilla and Beruka that Severa had ended up safe and sound in the end. As long as Elise, Inigo, Owain, and Niles stuck together, they’d probably be just fine.

“Come on,” Corrin said. “Let’s tell the others what you told me.”

Severa swallowed. She wasn’t sure what the others would think, if they would blame her sudden pointing of fingers on trauma or panic, like she had worried Corrin might have.

Beruka, she thought, would support her. For Camilla, Severa wasn’t so sure. Beruka was the one who was never very outward in her feelings, but somehow it was Camilla who could sometimes be harder to read.

Then she felt Corrin squeeze her hand reassuringly, and Severa felt something inside herself turn to steel.

Camilla would believe her. And if she didn’t—if anybody didn’t—Severa would make them believe.

They left the office.

 

 

 

Inigo was very alone and very afraid.

There were leaves in his hair and dirt on his shirt from where he’d slipped on a patch of empty grass two steps away from the cave’s entrance and promptly eaten shit, but if the fear hadn’t slowed him, neither had the fall.

His lungs were burning a bit. It had been a steady descent down into the caves, but by the time Inigo realized that meant there would be a steady _incline_ on the way out, he’d already begun running. The distance to the exit had also been a lot farther than he remembered it being. It was a good thing there had been only one path to the exit and nowhere else to turn off the path because otherwise Inigo might have gotten lost on the way back. None of them had time for that.

But he _had_ gotten out and he _had_ run the whole way, and now Inigo was running still. Somewhat tired and very wary but running.

His worried mind raced back to the sight of Owain collapsed on the ground, his foot caught firmly in a network of metal. Inigo’s stomach churned at the vivid memory. He hadn’t liked the idea of going into the cave in the first place, but he was pretty sure this was going to give him a phobia of any underground places for quite a while.

He hadn’t liked leaving Owain either. If Niles hadn’t been there with his commanding attitude and unwavering gaze, Inigo might not have left at all. But Niles had been present, and that, combined with the knowledge that keeping Owain company when he already had two other people helping him out was not nearly as helpful as finding outside help, had forced Inigo to dash off by himself.

And while it was true that Inigo would probably make it back to the house faster by himself than if he had to wait for Elise to keep up with him, he wasn’t looking forward to seeing how Xander would react to the fact Inigo had basically left his little sister behind in a cave full of boobytraps.

At least she was still with Niles and Owain, he thought. That was still better than leaving her entirely alone.

Still, Xander’s reaction probably wouldn’t be very pretty. Inigo hoped the fact Owain was in dire need of medical attention would make up for it, or at least distract him for a while.

Well, not really _dire_ need, he quickly amended. It wasn’t like Owain was anywhere close to _dying_. (Or so Inigo hoped.) Owain would probably hobble around on crutches for a while, he told himself, but hopefully this would be nothing more than a flesh wound.

Hopefully, Inigo thought.

Still, he made it a point to run.

Inigo desperately hoped there were no more foot traps lying in wait anywhere, because he definitely wasn’t keeping an eye out for them.

For some reason his mind drifted back to a memory from when he and Owain were younger. They had taken turns racing through Owain’s back yard to see who could be the fastest. They had run to the creek and back. Owain had almost always won, and the times Inigo took the lead were usually because he’d given himself a bit of a cheating head start. He’d always denied doing so when Owain pointed it out, of course.

If there was one thing Owain had always beaten him at, it had been foot races. Inigo could never quite match Owain’s swiftness.

He supposed Owain wouldn’t be challenging him to anymore races anytime soon, he thought grimly.

But even when Owain was in the best of health, Inigo had always had the better stamina.

You couldn’t learn to dance if you couldn’t keep up with the routines, and Inigo had long since numbed himself to the burn of overworked muscles, to the tightness in his chest and the pounding of his heart after a long workout. Sure, it was a bit of a ways back to the house, but the distance didn’t come even close to comparing to the strain Inigo felt after a long day at the studio.

The darkness, however…

Inigo caught his foot on a root and stumbled, cursing under his breath in the dark. He didn’t fall, however, and after righting himself, he took off again in what he was mostly sure was the direction of the house.

The darkness was another matter entirely.

Inigo wasn’t the best at running in the dark. He wasn’t the best at being in the dark, period. He slipped and tripped over every little thing, and every far off bush looked too much like a wolf or some other creature laying in wait for his liking.

He wished he had a light to see with, though he probably couldn’t have kept the light very steady while he ran anyway. He didn’t have his phone anymore. Inigo had dropped it when he’d tripped outside the cave, and his phone had gotten lost among the other lumpy shadows in the dirt. The constant use of his flashlight had drained the battery as well, and his phone had died just minutes before he’d dropped it. Inigo had scrambled with his arm along the smooth wall of the cave to find his way out in the first place. The sight of moonlight had made him speed up, and now he was paying for it with the loss of his one and only light source.

Not that there was much moonlight now. Thick, rolling clouds had turned the sky almost pitch black. It was nearly impossible to tell the curve of one tree from the open air until Inigo nearly crashed into them straight on.

It wasn’t like his phone mattered in the long run, Inigo told himself, dodging another stray tree branch. The Inigo of yesterday might have balked at the idea of losing his phone, but today’s Inigo had gladly given it up in exchange for reaching the house a few minutes faster than he otherwise would have. There wasn’t time to scramble around in the dark for a dead phone when your friend had gotten caught in some wannabe doctor’s torture chamber.

The night air was thick and wet, and the layer of sweat he’d built up on himself felt more like slime. The air was warm, but Inigo still felt cold.

Even more than his phone, however, Inigo wished he could have seen the lights of the house already. Nothing else mattered as long as he could see the house lights. He thought for sure the others would have started the fire already. But no dice. There wasn’t a flicker of flame anywhere to be seen, nor was there any comforting yellow glow of any windows in the distance. There was only black and more black.

The woods hadn’t seemed this terribly dense when Inigo had set out earlier that evening, but now he swerved every three feet to avoid running into a tree trunk. The woods were endless and oily. All he craved was a little bit of light. A flashlight, the house light, a fire—anything.

He’d fruitlessly run for so long in one direction that Inigo began begun to wonder if perhaps he hadn’t been going in the wrong direction all along.

Just as that thought drifted into Inigo’s mind with a burst of panic, he realized that the tree trunk he’d registered as suspiciously swaying several yards ahead of him—farther than he’d thought he’d been able to see at all until that moment—was not a tree at all.

It was a person in the distance—a hulking figure with shoulders broader than the trunks of most trees.

Inigo was already on edge after all the weird stuff they’d found in the fake cave. He didn’t for a second consider the figure might have been a friend.

He threw himself against the nearest tree and tried to blend into the bark. Abruptly, all the noise he hadn’t realized he’d been making—his panting and the constant loud snap of twigs snapping underfoot—came to a halt. Inigo winced at the sudden silence.

Carefully, slid a hand over his mouth to stifle his loud breathing. Inigo’s heart thudded in his chest. He had no idea who else was in the woods with him, but he hoped beyond hope that they hadn’t seen him. Undoubtedly, they had heard him. But Inigo hoped he blended in enough among the shadows not to be found.

He waited.

No voice called out to him. No flashlight beam cut across the open air. For a long moment, Inigo hid in silence. He relaxed marginally at the thought that there hadn’t been a figure at all—only Inigo’s imagination.

Then he heard it. The breathing.

It wasn’t Inigo’s own breathing. It wasn’t a breathing he’d ever heard before. It was heavy and wet, like the sound a sick dog made right before it threw up, but slower.

Inigo pressed his arms as tightly as he could to his sides and tried to make himself smaller. He dreaded the thought of meeting whoever could make a sound like that. It didn’t sound like a person at all.

 _There are no bears in these woods_ , Niles had said. But now Inigo wasn’t sure.

No, he told himself. It was a person. A very bear-like person, but a person nonetheless.

Somehow that thought wasn’t very comforting.

Briefly, he considered making a run for it. If he could make it back to the house before whoever else was in the woods caught up to him, then he was home free.

Except that wouldn’t work. Inigo _assumed_ he was close to the house, but he didn’t _know_ how close. He couldn’t risk getting caught before he could warn anyone else. He couldn’t even risk peeking around the side of the tree to see how close the stranger was to him.

He hoped the stranger wasn’t very close.

Then he heard footsteps.

It took a moment for Inigo to recognize the sound as footsteps at all. It sounded less like a person taking a step and more like an elephant stomping on the savannah.

Whoever was walking around was _heavy_. Easily twice Inigo’s size. Inigo swore he felt the earth vibrate underfoot with every step.

His only saving grace was that he was pretty sure the footsteps were walking away from him rather than closer, moving deeper into the woods.

Inigo was relieved by this revelation for all of about two seconds. Then he remembered that Owain, Niles, and Elise were waiting for him back in the cave.

Oh, no.

Inigo’s mind raced. For all he knew, the Bear Person stomping around mere feet from Inigo’s hiding space was dangerous, and the underground room Owain had gotten stuck in was their weird _lair_. Somebody had to have built that strange medical room, after all, and why couldn’t it have been the weirdo wandering around in the dead of night? If that was the case, Inigo and his friends had fallen right into some freaky trap. The Bear Person was probably heading back there right now, and nobody knew it but Inigo.

The thought of Owain, stuck in a bear trap and unable to run, being caught by such a person sent ice down Inigo’s spine. He nearly ran out of his hiding spot right then and there. Inigo forced himself to stay still and think.

It was possible this Bear Person wasn’t going back to the cave at all, and Inigo would have been wasting time by trying to get back there first and warn his friends. He wasn’t entirely sure he could find his way back to the cave without a light in the first place. He might have wandered around in the dark trying to warn them for nothing, and then it would take even longer to find the house again if he decided to turn around.

Still, Inigo wavered. No friendly person stomped around in the woods in the middle of the night. Nobody sane built underground passageways and put bear traps in their dirty surgical rooms. Elise, Owain, and Niles might have been in serious danger if Inigo didn’t try to head the stranger off and get back to them first. Who knew what the stranger was capable of, especially with the element of surprise?

On the other hand, nobody at the house knew where they were. If he didn’t alert Xander and the others first, Inigo might have been dooming them all if he turned back now. Especially since Owain probably couldn’t run.

Inigo’s chest tightened as the two choices danced at either end of his mind. If Inigo didn’t turn back now, Elise, Owain, and Niles might be caught in the clutches of some stranger. If he kept going, the same could still occur and they’d be without outside help. The two choices battled for dominance in his mind, equally risky.

Inigo hated high-pressure scenarios. He hated being the one who had to make the important, split-second choice. He didn’t feel cut out for them.

After a moment of waging a war within himself, Inigo realized with a jolt that the pounding footsteps had gotten quieter. The Bear Person had begun to disappear deeper into the woods. And Inigo was still frozen in his spot.

If he moved now, Inigo thought, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have been seen. He definitely might have been _heard_ , especially if he ran, but it was so dark that Inigo felt good about his chances of slipping away unscathed. He was pretty sure he still knew which way to run to make it back to the house too. Mostly.

But still. Owain, Elise, and Niles may have been in more imminent danger than they realized.

But he couldn’t just sit there, he scolded himself. He had to _choose_!

For a moment, Inigo hated everything in the world, including himself. Just as quickly as it came, a wave of resignation and regret washed over him instead.

This was, without a doubt, the worst trip he’d ever been on.

 _Sorry_ , he thought to nobody in particular.

Inigo made a split-second decision and pushed himself away from his hiding place.

 

 

 

Elise sat back and examined her handiwork.

Owain definitely needed to still go to the hospital and get checked out by a real doctor, but the bandage wrapped around his ankle looked secure. When Niles had managed to pry the trap open and Owain’s leg had been freed—after which the trap had wrenched shut again with a snap so sharp that had made all three of them flinch—Elise had taken stock of lacerations circling Owain’s ankle. They couldn’t have been any longer than an inch each and were likely thinner. The cuts had been deeper than she had liked, however, and they had started bleeding more freely as soon as the pressure of the metal teeth had been removed. A quick wipe with the handkerchief Elise carried around in her pocket and the swift application of gauze had taken care of most of that, though.

Now Owain and Niles were seeing if Owain could walk on his newly bandaged ankle. Elise didn’t like the idea—Owain should have rested and kept his ankle elevated, of course—but they weren’t in ideal conditions and Owain had rejected the idea Niles carry him all the way back through their trek in the woods immediately. So now they were testing it.

Elise tucked away the excess bandages in her back pocket, just in case.

She watched the way Niles’s hand tenderly ghosted over Owain’s ankle before helping his boyfriend to his feet. Then she averted her eyes. Niles was saying something too low for her to hear as Owain carefully stood up, but she thought it probably wasn’t meant for her ears anyway.

She wished Leo were here. Elise didn’t like it when she was apart from her family for too long, and she thought Leo definitely would have had a few words to say about going down into a spooky cave. To be fair, she mentally defended herself, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Or, maybe it hadn’t. But she hadn’t wanted to be left behind.

Leo would probably have some words about being left behind when they got back to him, she thought. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the sight of Owain limping back to greet him.

Xander probably would have something to say when they got back too. And Camilla. And Corrin, who would probably lecture Elise the least, which Elise liked the idea of the most. She was pretty sure they had all learned their lesson already. She just wanted to go home.

She wished the rest of her family was here. She would have felt a little better about walking around in the dark now that she knew there were traps laying around if they were.

But they weren’t here and Elise was, so she’d just have to make do.

With his arm slung around Niles’s shoulder, Owain had managed to rise to his feet. He put some tentative weight on his injured leg and winced. Elise frowned, but when he didn’t immediately fall over and when the arm Niles had wrapped around his waist tightened to let her know Niles was watching him, she looked away again.

Elise hadn’t said as much, but Niles probably knew she was pretty scared.

Helping Owain had distracted her from her fear. Bandaging a leg was definitely something she knew how to do. Part of Elise had wanted to panic, but going through the motions of helping Owain had forced a sense of calmness to wash over her. Doctors had to be clearheaded, after all. She tried to think of it as practice.

She continued to distract herself now by examining the dark path further into the cave that Owain and Inigo had been investigating before Owain had stepped in the trap. Owain had collapsed in the entrance of it, but truth be told, Elise had pretty much forgotten about it until now.

The gap in the rock here was thinner than the passageway leading into the cave. Elise guessed that two people could have walked side by side if they really squeezed together, but that was as wide as it got. The walls of this pathway looked much less smooth than the walls of the medical room. She wondered where the path led.

Elise shined her light—Owain’s phone, which had been forgotten on the floor until she’d picked it up— down the path and mentally despaired as she noticed how low the battery had dropped. When she spotted something metal catching in her light, that despair was quickly replaced by the more gloomy realization that there were more metal foot traps lining the path deeper into the caves. Elise spotted a handful of traps before the darkness became too strong and overpowered the flashlight. Even only a few feet in, she hadn’t liked how much metal she saw.

She took a cautious step back, away from the traps.

It was a good thing they were going back the way they came and not further down, she thought. Going down was definitely a bad idea.

“You shouldn’t be walking on that,” Niles said. His voice was suddenly loud enough for her to hear. Elise turned.

Owain was using the countertop under the wall shelves for support, but he was standing without Niles’s help. She realized he must have walked over to the counters by himself without her noticing. Niles stood several feet away, watching Owain carefully.

“It’s fine,” Owain said. He still sounded a little pained, but he didn’t sound as bad off as when his foot been caught. “It’s not great, but I’ll make do. You can’t carry me the whole way back.”

“Watch me,” Niles said.

His words almost sounded light, but Elise was pretty sure Niles would do it. Owain probably knew that too.

“I’m fine,” Owain said again. “It’s getting easier the more I walk on it. See?”

He took a few shaky steps forward. He was limping like Elise had expected he would. If the pain was too bad to stand regularly, however, Owain didn’t let it show. He even flashed her a grin. The sight of it actually did make Elise feel a little better.

Niles stepped closer, guiding Owain back to the counter.

“Relax for a minute,” he said—almost gently, Elise thought. She didn’t get to see this side of Niles often. “We can leave when you’re ready.”

Owain smiled up at him. “I’m always ready. Nothing can keep Owain Dark down for long!”

He’d been making that joke for as long as Elise had known him. It felt normal. Comforting.

“Except tetanus,” Niles said.

“Except—” Owain caught himself. “No way! I’m up to date on my shots.”

Niles hummed. “Let’s hope so.”

“I am!”

Niles looked over at Elise.

“What’s your vote, doctor?” he asked. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her or being serious. It was hard to tell with Niles sometimes. “How long should we wait before taking off?”

“The patient says he’s fine,” Owain chimed in, ignoring Niles’s sideways look.

Whether or not Niles was teasing when he called her “doctor”—though for some reason Elise was inclined to think he was being serious—she considered his question carefully. If they waited a long time before leaving, Owain’s ankle could swell and make it harder for him to walk. On the other hand, the longer they waited, the better the chance there was of running into Xander and the others before they even got back to the house. There were costs and benefits to both choices. She liked to think Leo would have been proud of her using those terms.

Ultimately she decided that she was pretty sure Niles was going to tell them to wait no matter what. Thankfully Elise agreed with his assessment.

“We should wait a few more minutes,” Elise said. “Then we can start making our way back.” She frowned, eyeing Owain’s ankle some more. “Slowly.”

“Seriously, it’s fine,” Owain said again, still leaning against the counter, but they both ignored him.

Niles nodded approvingly. “Another five minutes then.”

Elise had Owain’s phone, and Niles still had his own. They were down to only two lights illuminating the pitch black room. Elise wished she had found that light switch she had been looking for earlier. It might have been her imagination, but she thought their phone lights weren’t as bright as they had been before.

It hadn’t seemed so dark before when Inigo had been there with his beaming face and his own flashlight. But now that Inigo was gone and they were down to three people, one of whom was injured, Elise thought the darkness had begun curling around the toes of her shoes in a way she didn’t like.

It suddenly felt like she was too far away from Niles and Owain even though they stood only a few feet away. Shivering, Elise was about to take a step closer to them when she heard a noise that made her turn around instead.

There was a shuffling coming from behind them. From the path leading to the cave entrance. The shuffling sounded like quick, heavy footsteps.

Someone was making their way into the cave, Elise realized. They were getting closer.

It had to be Inigo. It could have been Xander or Camilla—the footsteps sounded heavy enough to warrant that—but Elise didn’t think they could have made it back so quickly. Unless Xander or Camilla had already been out looking for her? She must have been late for the bonfire by now. They could have been looking for her. It made sense.

She opened her mouth to call out to them, but Niles’s sharp _“Shh”_ gave her pause.

Elise looked over, mouth hanging open.

Owain stared at the path the noise was coming from, but Niles stared at her. When he was sure Elise was looking at him, he shook his head quietly.

Elise slowly closed her mouth. She didn’t know what that meant. Niles didn’t want her to speak?

But Inigo or Camilla—

But what if it _wasn’t_ them, she suddenly realized. What if Inigo hadn’t turned around for some reason? What if Camilla or Xander hadn’t been looking for them? Wouldn’t they have called out by now?

Elise waited for a light to appear in the distance. Then she’d know how close the person entering the cave was. But the shuffling grew louder, the footsteps closer, and no light appeared on the path.

The exit to the cave was very, very dark. It looked like the opening to an endless abyss. Elise couldn’t see in the dark very well. She always needed a light. Didn’t this person need one too? Why wasn’t there a light?

Elise took a nervous step back. Then she remembered the traps behind her and jerked forward again.

A hand touched her arm. A scream rose in Elise’s throat, but the hand that slipped over her mouth forced it to die where it was. She looked over and saw Niles suddenly standing closer, mouth drawn taut.

“Shh,” he whispered again. His voice was so quiet she almost couldn’t hear him. He dropped his hand. “We need to hide.”

 _“Where?”_ Elise mouthed. There weren’t many spaces to hide in the bare room. She could have maybe squeezed under the counters if she really tried, but she didn’t know where Owain and Niles would hide.

Owain wobbled into her line of sight and jerked his head toward the path that led deeper into the caves. The one that led to who knew where. The one that was full of traps.

Elise shook her head quickly.

No. This wasn’t a good idea. They couldn’t go down there.

“Whoever built this place was up to no good,” Niles said. He was pushing her toward the path, but Elise didn’t budge. He kept looking over his shoulder to where the noise was coming from and Elise knew they didn’t have much time, but she didn’t want to go _there_.

“There are more traps down there,” Elise whispered.

Niles squeezed her shoulder once. “Then walk carefully.”

Elise made a nervous sound in her throat. Niles circled around in front of her as Owain limped up behind.

“I’ll go in front,” Niles whispered. “Just follow my steps and walk quickly, okay?”

Any answer Elise could have come up with died in her throat. She knew Niles was right. She didn’t want to meet the type of person who would leave big traps laying around underground for her family to get caught in. She just _really_ didn’t want to walk further into the dark either.

Niles ducked down the thin path and might have disappeared if not for the fact Elise was careful to keep the beam of her light aimed at him. She watched Niles’s light sweep across the floor. He picked his way around the traps with an ease Elise wasn’t sure she could replicate.

Owain laid his hand on her shoulder, and Elise knew they were out of time. She could hear the shuffling footsteps from the opposite path growing ever closer, and she didn’t want to find out what kind of person breathed _that_ heavily. It sounded like an animal’s panting. Someone big, probably.

Elise was very small.

If she thought about it, _really_ thought about it, she might have said that heavy breathing sounded familiar.

But she didn’t, and Elise was pretty preoccupied with trying not to shiver too obviously under Owain’s hand anyway. She clutched his phone so tightly the back of her knuckles went white. She offered it to him, but Owain shook his head no. Elise was quietly grateful.

She whispered, “If your leg hurts too much, put your weight on me, okay?”

Owain’s smile looked rather grim. Elise told herself it was her imagination again.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Just keep moving.”

They were out of time.

Elise remembered Leo’s advice, and even though she was mature enough now to know it didn’t really work that way, it made her feel better to count her steps.

 _One_ , Elise thought. _Two, three, four, five…_

She stepped deeper into the cave with Owain by her side, eyes glued to the floor, searching for any hint of glittering metal in her flashlight. Only a few steps in, Owain steered her away from the first trap, but Elise had already seen it. She wasn’t very at spotting the shape of the traps in the dark, but she made sure to sweep her light back and forth across the uneven floor to catch everything she could in the beam.

Just like she’d thought, the path wasn’t large enough for them to always stand side by side in, especially with all the foot traps. After a few moments, Owain had to fall behind Elise so they walked in a row rather than side by side. The path just wasn’t wide enough to be safe.

She knew why he’d fallen behind, but she still turned around to tell him they could slow down if they needed to. Owain quickly motioned for her to watch her step. He had a serious face, and the thought of accidentally stepping into one of the traps made Elise snap forward. She didn’t turn around again.

Niles was waiting for them next to a curvy bend in the path Elise hadn’t realized existed until they were right upon it. He kept his phone aimed at the floor and didn’t shine the light too far back down the way they’d come. Elise wondered if they had been spotted anyway.

“Good job,” he said, probably for Elise’s benefit. “Let’s keep going.”

He moved around the bend. Elise quickly followed after him, forgetting to check for traps until the last second. Thankfully there were none. She heard Owain walking uncomfortably behind her. He made a quiet pained noise every few feet that he probably thought she couldn’t hear.

“Niles,” she whispered, catching up to him. He didn’t know any more than she did, but still, she couldn’t help herself. “Where does this go?”

“Away,” Niles said quietly and without stopping.

Elise glanced behind herself briefly and saw Owain trailing behind. She slowed down, and Niles quietly did the same without acknowledgement. Owain caught up to them in only a few steps, looking unhappy.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m following. Don’t worry about me.”

Niles shook his head. “I’ll worry about you until the day I die.”

“Yeah, well.” Elise felt more than saw Owain look at her. “Let’s not make it today.”

That sounded like a good plan.

Was that just Owain, she wondered, or was that another set of shuffling footsteps farther behind them? Footsteps, it might have been said, that belonged to the type of person that would hollow out an underground cave. Or was that Elise’s imagination running away from her again?

She couldn’t cross her arms without dropping Owain’s phone, but Elise hugged herself as best she could anyway.

“What do we do,” Elise asked, “if this is a dead end?”

Owain said, “Don’t worry about that.”

Niles said, “We’ll find out.”

 

 

 

With one last glance toward either end of the hall where Beruka and Camilla stood waiting—one of them holding another wooden stake from the broken chair downstairs and the other a bloodied hatchet—Xander very slowly and carefully raised the hooked pole above his head and caught it on the attic’s handle.

Corrin and Severa, who before had been whispering in low voices to one another at the top of the stairs, grew silent. At the far end of the hall, Leo stood tense. He clutched the handle of a knife in hand.

The pole used to open the attic door was large, rectangular, and, Xander thought, easily accessible as a weapon. It had taken only a quick peek inside one of the nearby unused bedrooms to find it. The small hook on the end was a perfect fit for the attic handle. It probably wouldn’t have felt very good slashing against a giant’s eye either.

Assuming the likely monster in the attic wasn’t wearing an iron mask like the dead one downstairs, that was. Xander was pretty sure he could improvise either way. He certainly had the motivation for it.

It was possible there wasn’t a monster in the attic at all, but given the night’s events so far and how the rest of his family had failed to turn up yet, Xander wasn’t very hopeful of that possibility.

One tug was all it would take to open the hatch and see what awaited them inside. Another tug, and the attic ladder would come sliding out to the hallway floor.

Xander knew this wasn’t the best plan. But it was the one they had all more or less agreed upon.

He had been forced to agree when Camilla and Leo had vetoed contacting the police due to their distance, probable inexperience, and how crazy they all would have sounded if they showed up at a police station saying there was a monster at their house. Plus how unprepared the officers would be if they lied and said it was a regular burglar instead of literal monsters. Plural.

With the lack of cell service and the imminent danger the missing half of their party might have been in, they couldn’t risk splitting the group up any more to go driving around in the dark for hours in search of a police station. Nor could they risk wasting time slowly gathering a search party in the dark. They had to act quickly.

Running around blindly wasn’t on the agenda either, as much as Xander’s legs itched to carry him out of the house and into the woods. He was prepared to yell Elise and Inigo’s names until his throat went raw and beyond. It more than a little possible that he wasn’t thinking very clearly in his worry.

But then—as Leo had said—there was the trouble of getting caught by something unfortunate in the dark themselves while they searched, as well as the chance Elise, Inigo, Niles, or Owain could come back to the house while they were gone.

They couldn’t leave. They couldn’t run around blindly. They couldn’t risk weakening the group by splitting up.

That didn’t leave them with a lot of options.

If Severa was right—and she had unfortunately given Xander a _lot_ to consider, later—there may have been at least two other creatures like the one that attacked Severa running around the area.

Xander had been too slow to catch the monster the first time, and his family had been forced to face it instead. He refused to fall behind again.

As though sensing Xander’s unsettled thoughts, the _thing_ in the attic took several stomping footsteps as it moved across the attic floor. Xander heard Camilla suck in a sharp breath. He felt the vibrations move through the ceiling and down the wooden pole in his hands. Whatever the thing was up there, it was large and angry.

Xander had seen the thing in the kitchen. Its ashen skin, its rippling muscles—he couldn’t imagine any lone person going up against something like that by themselves, nonetheless someone like Elise or Inigo. It would have been suicide.

Which was why he couldn’t leave the creature in the attic be, even if all Xander really wanted to do was find his family out there in the woods. The creature was agitated, and it didn’t seem to be calming down anytime soon. The attic couldn’t hold it forever. They couldn’t risk something like that breaking out and catching any of them by surprise. They only had so many miracles to use.

He didn’t know if some of them had been caught by surprise already, if that was why the others hadn’t returned yet.

His stomach was filled with lead.

If something had happened to Elise or Inigo…

Xander shoved that worry away. He couldn’t afford any distractions now.

Later. He’d think about the possibilities later.

Because if he considered any of them now, he wouldn’t have been able to function.

They had to deal with what they knew, even if that meant finding out more about what was under their very noses first.

Or right above their heads, as it were.

And yet despite that, Xander’s chest grew tight with the unknowns.

Why hadn’t they noticed it up there before, he wondered. Why had it been so quiet the first day? Had it grown agitated because of the screaming? Because it had sensed that the creature in the kitchen was close? He didn’t know. Xander had never cursed his father’s secrets and mischief so much before. Too many questions ran through his mind, and none of them could be answered without a closer look at what awaited them in the attic.

Xander steadied himself. Blood pounded through his veins. His grip tightened around the pole.

“Three,” he said quietly, just loud enough for Beruka and Camilla to hear. In the corner of his eye, Beruka nodded. “Two, o—”

_“Xander!”_

Xander dropped the pole like he had been burned. It swung unsteadily from the attic door’s handle, but Xander’s head whipped around too quickly to pay it much mind, all thoughts of opening the attic and searching for answers suddenly vanishing at the sound of his name.

He spun and saw Camilla looking back down the hallway. At the top of the stairs, Corrin and Severa were peering over the side of the banister. Severa’s toes had practically left the floor as she strained to get a better look into the living room. With the angle of the staircase, she probably couldn’t see into the living room at all. Corrin’s hands on her shoulders kept her from toppling over the side.

Beyond them, Xander could only see the drab wall of his father’s damned house.

He couldn’t see Inigo. But he was _here_. Without a doubt, that had been Inigo’s voice. Xander would have recognized it anywhere, even without the desperate edge of panic and exhaustion laced within. He just wasn’t where Xander could see him.

He needed to get to the ground floor.

The acute need to see Inigo that Xander had been holding back thus far came crashing over his senses. When Camilla looked back at him, he knew she could see it in his face as well. That was the last coherent thought Xander had before the thought of only Inigo overtook his mind.

“Inigo!” he called out, racing towards the staircase. Camilla deftly moved aside as Xander barreled past, a mixture of confusion and relief painted on her features, and Severa was smart enough to push Corrin aside as he pounded down the stairs past them as well.

He made it to the bottom of the stairs in a blur and rounded the staircase so fast he nearly slid on the hardwood floor.

And then there was Inigo, standing in the middle of the living room and very much alive. He looked like he’d spent some time in a whirlwind, but he was _alive._

“Xander!” Inigo said again, relief clear on his face.

Dimly, Xander registered more footsteps on the stairs that heralded the approach of the rest of the group, but all he could see was Inigo.

There was dirt on his clothes and a scrape on his chin. Inigo’s hair was askew. The laces on one of his shoes were loose. The sliding glass door was open behind him, which was dangerous, but Xander couldn’t bring himself to care. He slammed into his boyfriend, pulling Inigo close to his chest and pressing his nose against his hair.

Inigo’s arms immediately came up to hug him back, and Xander allowed himself approximately two seconds to relish the feel of Inigo in his arms before he pulled himself away and cupped Inigo by the cheeks instead, searching his face for any sign of injury.

“What happened?” Xander demanded. “Where’s Elise? Where have you been?”

Inigo’s hands loosely wrapped around Xander’s wrists, but despite the wild look in his eye, he didn’t try to pry Xander off of him.

“There was this cave,” he said in a rush. “Owain got caught in a fucking _bear trap_ down in a creepy room underground. He’s hurt. Niles and Elise stayed with him. There’s some big guy wandering around, and I don’t know where he is.”

It sounded as though he had spent time practicing that explanation, but Xander still had trouble keeping up with them in the haste with which Inigo spat his words. Did “some big guy” mean another creature or an actual person, Xander wondered. Did Inigo even know what had happened yet?

“You left Elise in a cave?” he asked, still trying to process everything.

Though the thought of Elise being left underground somewhere didn’t sit well with him, Xander was putting a hold on any negative feelings to process the rest of the situation in full first. He didn’t mean it in an accusatory manner. That wasn’t the way it came out, however. Xander realized that at the same moment Inigo, looking hurt, took a step back.

In his surprise, Xander let him. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Leo—who had caught up to them without Xander’s noticing—beat him to it.

Practically standing between Xander and Inigo, Leo, face pale, repeated, “You left Elise in a cave?” Then: “With Owain _caught in a bear trap?_ ”

Inigo’s eyes darted between them. “That’s what—”

“And where is Niles?” Leo cut Inigo off.

“With Owain and Elise, like I said!” Inigo defended. “Niles _told_ me to come here! I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been there!” He looked guilty but continued. “Can you be mad at me later? There are more important things at hand right now. Like calling an ambulance. And maybe the police.”

“Inigo,” Xander said, stepping around Leo and giving his brother a warning look. Now wasn’t the time to get angry and panic. Leo looked unhappy but took a deep breath anyway. Xander said, “Is anyone in immediate danger?”

Inigo stared at him. “I mean, technically,” he said slowly. “But Owain—"

“He means life-threatening danger,” Severa cut in, surprising Xander once again. She and the rest of Xander’s siblings stood behind him. “Because you missed a lot while you were gone.”

“Severa!” Then Inigo squinted at her, like he could tell something was wrong. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Severa said dismissively. “Is anyone dying?”

Inigo grimaced. He wrapped his arms around himself, and Xander wanted to hug him as well, but now wasn’t the time.

“I don’t think anyone’s dying just yet, but Owain’s leg… It didn’t look great.” Inigo must have caught Leo’s stricken look, because he quickly added, “Not that it was that bad! But, you know, it looked pretty painful. And also infections are a thing.” He looked to Xander again. “So the sooner we can go back and help him, the better. And that guy—”

“What did he look like?” Xander asked. If he had been too tall, too beastly, if “that guy” was inhuman—

Inigo looked even guiltier than before.

“I don’t really know,” he said. “I think he was big. He actually scared me out in the woods when I was coming back to get you guys, so I hid and didn’t see him very well.” Inigo looked over his shoulder at the open backdoor as a warm wind blew in. Camilla moved past him to shut it. “He didn’t even have a flashlight or anything.”

Inigo might have thought it to be cowardice, but Xander was quietly grateful Inigo had chosen to hide rather than engage directly. If he had confronted the “man,” Xander wasn’t sure if Inigo would even be standing before him right now. Not that he planned on saying so just yet and scaring Inigo more than he already seemed to be.

“I don’t know if he knew about the cave or all the weird stuff down there,” Inigo continued. “And actually, I do have to tell you guys about all of that later because it was _weird_ down there. But more importantly, we should really grab a first aid kit and anything else we might need and hurry back. Like, _right_ now.”

Xander exchanged looks with Leo and Camilla. He knew Severa must have made a face or mouthed something behind him because of the way Inigo confusedly looked over Xander’s shoulder.

To Leo and Xander, Camilla said, “If he can take us to Elise and the others, then we should follow him. Some of us should stay here just in case.”

“That sounds good,” Leo said. For all he’d been the one to ward them against splitting up earlier, he seemed eager to get out there now that Inigo knew where to take them. Xander couldn’t blame him.

Xander nodded in agreement with his siblings, but his attention was split as he realized Inigo’s focus had shifted from Severa to something else.

“Where’d you find an axe?” Inigo asked Beruka, who was still somewhere out of Xander’s line of sight. His face suddenly grew even paler. “Is that blood on it?”

He took an involuntary step back.

Xander took a step forward, not looking over his shoulder at Beruka and her hatchet. “Inigo—”

“Did something happen?” Inigo asked hastily, expression somehow growing even more scared. “Like, we should already be calling an ambulance about Owain’s leg right now, but—"

“A lot happened,” Xander said vaguely, reaching out to reassure him. “Elise, Owain, and Niles may be in danger right now, though, so we can tell you on the way. Right now you should take us to them.”

Inigo’s eyes danced around the room, scanning everyone’s somber faces.

“What kind of danger?” he asked nervously.

Camilla, Leo, and Xander all opened their mouths to reply at once—Xander was sure he heard Corrin and Severa both begin to speak as well—but before any of them could get a word out, the sound of splintering wood echoed from upstairs.

 

 

 

Owain was not having a very good day.

Niles had been right when he said this wasn’t a vacation. Owain had known that from the start—had known his priority was Leo and making sure he felt comfortable in his father’s old home—but some of his eagerness had gotten the best of him when Leo had told him to go out and explore. He was paying for it now.

Still, Owain would gladly bear the pain burning in his ankle for however long he needed if it meant all three of them got out of here alive.

It had been a relief when the many sets of traps laying in the path had disappeared after the first few yards. But as thee dark, uneven tunnel had continued on and on, Owain’s worry hadn’t subsided. Elise probably thought he’d fallen back because of his pain and the narrowness of the cave walls, and truthfully that had been part of it. Owain’s ankle _really_ hurt, and he could feel fresh blood soaking through the neat bandages Elise had wrapped around him earlier. But he’d also fallen back in order to subtly place himself between Elise and their pursuer without drawing too much attention to himself.

Not that their pursuer was being particularly stealthy. Owain knew what sneaking around sounded like, and the heavy footsteps following distantly behind them weren’t very sneaky at all. They were far enough away that it was a little hard to hear them, but when Owain strained to listen, he could still hear the fourth set of footsteps somewhere behind them pretty clearly. He wasn’t sure Elise had noticed. Niles might have, but he was also leading the front of their line. Owain couldn’t be sure.

There wasn’t much he could do about it now though. The skin at the back of his neck prickled with the weight of unseen eyes, and Owain itched to turn around and confront their pursuer. He hated the feeling of keeping his back to the darkness. He hated that they were only down to two flashlights. But with his aching leg, Owain wasn’t in a position to fight and he didn’t want to scare Elise, so he kept his mouth shut and acted as normally as possible.

Elise and Niles shone their lights ahead. No matter how far the lights reached, however, all Owain saw ahead of them was stone and darkness. Over Elise’s shoulder, he could see that his phone battery was dangerously low. Owain had no idea how much longer their flashlights would last. He didn’t know how much farther the tunnel ahead of them stretched either. It could have been miles or mere feet. The thought of the tunnel stretching on forever in one direction wasn’t a pleasant one.

But if the tunnel ended abruptly in a dead end, they were probably screwed then as well.

Owain tried not to think about it.

He winced as his ankle throbbed again. Like Elise had said, it wasn’t a good idea to be walking on it this much without a rest. Under normal circumstances, he might have even been tempted to take Niles up on his offer for a piggyback ride.

Obviously these weren’t normal circumstances, and so Owain didn’t. They needed to save their strength.

It was strange, though. Despite the fact Elise, Niles, and Owain weren’t quite rushing down the tunnel, their pursuer hadn’t caught up to them. Owain didn’t think they were getting much closer or falling very far behind either. Part of Owain thought they were keeping their distance for the moment.

That worked for him. As long as he didn’t have to worry about making a run for it any time soon, he could force himself to keep going.

Still, it was worrying. Was their pursuer going slow because they knew the tunnel ended in another trap? Or did they have another plan in mind?

 _Slow and steady wins the race,_ Owain reminded himself. The story of the tortoise and the hare had been one of many he remembered being told as a child. He debated retelling it to himself now with character voices to distract himself from the anxious nerves that were seriously about to fry his brain.

Owain breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth slowly. The tunnel stretched out before them. They didn’t know what was in store ahead of them, but so long as they were cautious, Owain was sure they could make it. Or so he told himself.

As if sensing his worry, Niles glanced over his shoulder. The shadows on his face seemed exaggerated with Elise’s light pointed at his feet. Owain made sure to flash him a cocky grin. That grin turned into a wince as Niles looked back ahead and Owain placed a little too much weight on his foot as he took a step over a particularly rocky patch of ground.

“Owain?”

Elise had been quiet for a while. They all had, so her soft voice briefly startled him. He could just barely see her peering back at him through the curtain of her hair.

“What’s wrong, my lady?” he asked. Elise usually giggled when he called her “my lady.” It was something of a game between them. He hoped it cheered her up.

Elise paused. She looked ahead again. “Just checking. Sorry.”

Owain wondered how well she could see him—either of them—even with the flashlights. He wanted to clear his throat, but he didn’t want their pursuer to hear them for any reason either.

“Fear not, Lady Elise,” he said as loudly as he dared, which wasn’t very loud at all. “Owain Dark thrives in the darkness. This is the perfect setting for one such as myself.”

Niles snorted.

“If you say so,” Elise said. He liked to think she didn’t sound as nervous as before.

Part of Owain wanted to offer to hold her hand or something, but there would have barely been enough room to walk side by side and she undoubtedly would have noticed his worsening limp if he tried to keep up with her.

In the front of their line, Niles did not stop, but he did slow slightly. He turned and whispered something to Elise too quietly for Owain to hear without stopping. Niles seemed as reluctant to quit moving as Owain.

“What was that?” Owain whispered.

Elise turned her head towards Owain. Without watching her step, she stumbled on rock that jutted out of the floor but thankfully didn’t fall.

Elise whispered, “Niles says he sees a door.”

A door. Owain nodded, swallowing.

A door could mean many things. Maybe something good. Even more likely, something not.

Mostly, he hoped it was unlocked. Otherwise they were walking right into the dead end Owain had hoped to avoid.

Emphasis on “dead.”

And just as he had that thought, Elise’s light went out.

 

 

 

Camilla realized what was happening the moment she heard the snap of the wood and the crash. The thought of anyone she loved being in danger again—dear Xander, Leo or Corrin, precious Beruka or Severa—spurred her into action.

Even as she pushed herself away from the back door and sprinted towards the staircase, she didn’t feel out of breath or frightened. She didn’t feel the same panic clawing at her heart as she’d felt when she saw Severa standing in the shadow of that monster.

Camilla felt cold with rage.

“Shit!” Severa swore. Loudly. Beruka had pressed herself against Severa’s back, eyes locked coolly on the staircase.

Severa dove towards startled Leo and snatched something from his grasp. The knife he’d pulled from the kitchen, most likely. That left Leo unarmed, but Camilla paid them no mind. She didn’t plan on allowing anyone else close enough to have to fight.

“Stay here,” Xander barked at Inigo as Camilla rushed by.

Inigo looked alarmed. “What was that?”

Camilla had a pretty good idea.

She snagged her makeshift spear—another broken chair leg—from the bottom of the steps where she’d dropped it and sprinted up the stairs without stopping. Camilla had never been so grateful she’d chosen to wear her heavy boots that morning.

Upstairs, the long, drab hallway lined with bedrooms was empty. Almost.

A thick gray leg wiggled in the air through a hole in the ceiling, stuck right through the entrance hatch to the attic. The pole Xander had nearly used to open the attic had fallen to the carpet below the leg. Splinters of wood from the ceiling had fallen around it.

Camilla wasn’t one to wait, and even with a single wiggling kicking leg as her target—a leg that probably could have easily broken her nose if it made contact with her face—she rushed in. She clutched her spear tightly in hand.

Just as Camilla took another running step forward, a second leg crashed through the ceiling. She gritted her teeth as more splinters of wood fell into the hallway. Suddenly she was looking at two thick legs kicking in the air, but not even that slowed her. Camilla could hear the creature pounding its fists on the attic floor in frustration, roaring.

She didn’t slow. The ceiling was high, but the legs were long and Camilla was tall. As soon as she was close enough, she shoved the jagged end of her spear into the meat of the monster’s thigh and twisted it, aiming for the major artery Camilla knew existed there. Elise had once showed her on a diagram. The memory of her sister caused her to press the spear in deeper, harder. There was some resistance from the thick meat of the monster’s thigh, but Camilla forced the wood in.

Brown blood welled up around the wound and immediately began pouring down the monster’s leg. It washed over Camilla’s fingers as she thrust the spear deeper and deeper into its leg. She hoped it hurt as much as it looked like it did.

The blood was unnatural. It looked smelled terribly and felt gummy. It was exactly the same as the blood that had splattered through the air when Camilla and Beruka had taken out the monster that had attacked Severa. That memory steeled her even more. Camilla observed the wound with the same cold distain she gave a bug she crushed under her heel.

The monster roared in anguish and caught Camilla in the chest with a powerful kick. Camilla stumbled back against the wall, the breath knocked out of her lungs. She tossed her hair back out of her face. Her hands were empty. Despite how wildly the monster kicked and swung its leg, her spear was stuck too deep into his thigh to fall.

More splinters of wood fell away, and part of the creature’s waist came through the ceiling. The attic door didn’t look big enough to accommodate its huge size, but Camilla had no doubt it would find a way through, one way or another, unless she stopped it.

She didn’t think of it as a living creature. She didn’t think of it as something that maybe used to be a person. It was a monster, an obstacle in her path, a threat to her family. And Camilla would never hesitate to be rid of those.

In Camilla’s rush to attack the creature, she’d ignored the scramble and panicked sounds from below. If she hadn’t, she later decided, she might have seen Severa coming.

“Severa!” Camilla yelled as a blur of red hair dashed by her, her mask of ice cracking for a moment. She took a step forward, but short fingers caught her arm, steadying her. Beruka.

With reckless regard, Severa dove towards the creature. Its lower half still hung out of the ceiling, but Camilla heard the ominous cracking of the wood. It was going to fall through sooner rather than later.

Camilla called out again, but Severa didn’t seem to hear. She was nearly as tall as Camilla, and so she was able to reach the thin sliver of stomach peeking out below the ceiling. With Leo’s knife in hand, Severa stabbed the monster in the stomach wildly.

The creature kicked and roared. It knocked Severa against the wall with a crunch that made Camilla howl, but Severa didn’t let up. The spear still poking out of the creature’s leg grazed Severa’s forehead as she dove back for more, but Severa ignored it and stabbed the creature again and again.

Blood flew through the air with every thrust of the knife, catching Severa along the throat, her arms, the walls. As Camilla and Beruka watched them tensely, looking for an opening or some way to dive around Severa in the thin hallway, a second kick sent Severa reeling back. This time Severa fell to the floor and took a moment too long to stand.

Apparently all that wriggling had become too much for the ceiling. The monster fell through the last of the hatch as wood and thin flakes of white paint fell with it. It landed in the hallway just before Severa, its massive weight seemingly shaking the whole house as it slammed into the floor. It was just as ugly as the first creature had been. This one wore the same iron mask the first monster had also worn, shielding its face, but Camilla could have spat at the bare sight of the rest of it. It really was a monster.

She didn’t wonder what might have laid beyond the mask. It didn’t matter.

Now that the creature was free of its wooden prison and able to freely move, they were at a disadvantage. It towered over all of them—prone Severa especially. Camilla flashed back to the kitchen all over again. She would have dived forward to take the following blow herself if she thought she could have shrugged off Beruka’s arm in time. But Beruka didn’t let up, and as much as Camilla loved her, for a moment she hated Beruka as well.

“Severa!” Camilla shouted at the same time Beruka growled, _“Move!”_

The creature roared, fists raised high.

“Fuck you!” Severa roared back, scrambling to her feet and gathering herself enough to crouch low in front of the monster. “I’m not doing this again!”

Then, because she was crazy and Camilla loved her for it, Severa dove between the monster’s legs and tucked herself into a roll.

Miraculously, she made it to the other side of the hallway without being grabbed by the monster’s massive hand, which took a swipe at her as she moved. Severa came up on the other side of the monster and rose to her feet, one hand pressed against the wall for support.

Or so Camilla thought. It was difficult to see her beyond the monster’s hulking form.

Xander, Leo, Corrin, and Inigo all crowded around the top of the staircase. Xander began to rush forward, but Camilla stopped him with a quick, “Stop! There’s not enough room for all of us!”

Xander froze because it was true. The hallway was too thin. The monster, by far the biggest living creature in the hallway, nearly brushed both sides of the hallway with the sheer span of its shoulders. Xander held his arm out, keeping the others at bay. Various expressions of fear, helplessness, and frustration were painted on their features.

Severa had given them a chance.

The monster’s head twisted back and forth, clearly wavering as to which threat was the bigger one—the large, mostly weaponless, group in front of it or the wild woman holding a knife behind it. Despite its size, it only had one head. It couldn’t face two threats at once.

It eventually seemed to settle on the group as the larger threat. The monster reached down to wrench the chair leg out of its still bleeding thigh, rumbling lowly in pain as more muddy blood dripped out of its stomach from the sound Severa had made as it leaned over. But before it could do more than wrap its fingers around the handle of the stake, Beruka shot forward and swung at the monster’s arm with her hatchet, just as she had once before.

The hatchet didn’t sink very deeply into the monster’s meaty arm. But it did cause the creature to focus on her and her alone for a moment.

The monster swung its arm out with a speed Camilla could barely follow and slammed Beruka’s head into the wall. The hatchet tumbled out of her grasp and onto the floor. The monster’s hand was nearly bigger than Beruka’s entire face, and it pulled Beruka away from the wall only to slam her head against it once more.

For a moment, Beruka went limp. Camilla saw red.

She didn’t have a weapon anymore, but she didn’t care. The monster released Beruka, and Camilla’s girlfriend slumped to the floor just in time for Camilla to slam into the creature’s arm and wrap herself around it.

 _“Camilla!”_ several voices shouted from down the hall. She dimly registered a scuffle of human feet further down the hall, but she was more preoccupied with restraining the monster than the rest of the group.

She couldn’t restrain the monster entirely. She simply lacked the size and strength. But she could certainly hold it for long enough for someone else to do something.

And someone else did. At the same moment Camilla grabbed the monster’s arm, Severa leapt onto the monster’s back, scrambling for purchase and wrapping her arms around its neck.

The monster reared back, reaching for Severa with its free arm. It tried to wrench its other arm from Camilla’s grasp, but though it was difficult and she could barely feel herself holding on, Camilla ground herself on the carpet and held tight.

By her feet, Beruka stirred. Relief bloomed in Camilla’s chest, but she forced herself to focus. The pained sound Beruka made only filled her with more rage.

The monster shoved instead of trying to pull, and Camilla’s back hit the wall with a painful slap. She nearly faltered. Nearly.

She registered the flash of metal above the monster’s head before she fully registered what it meant. Severa dug the knife into the monster’s neck, just under the mask. The creature roared. The roar turned into a gurgle as blood began pouring out around the knife handle.

Then Severa thrust the knife forward, away from herself, slashing open the monster’s throat.

Brown blood poured from its neck like a waterfall. Almost immediately Camilla felt its arm go slack in her grasp. Severa disappeared from sight. Her knife fell to the floor by the monster’s feet, but the damage was already done.

Camilla dropped the monster’s arm and _shoved_. Then she grabbed Beruka.

The monster toppled backwards. Its back hit the floor, and though it clawed helplessly at its throat and the air for a moment, it eventually grew still.

Beruka dizzily rose to her feet, using Camilla as support. There was blood—red blood, normal blood—matted in the hair on the back of her head. Camilla squeezed her arm.

“How do you feel?” she asked Beruka. She could hear the others charging in their direction, but after making sure Beruka wasn’t about to collapse in her arms, she ignored them and looked around for Severa.

Severa stood above the monster’s head, panting heavily. Her right hand was coated in brown blood. Practically slick with it. Camilla watched Severa wipe her hand off on her jeans as best she could. She eyed the rest of Severa, but she seemed uninjured, so Camilla stayed with Beruka.

“Fine,” Beruka said, drawing Camilla’s attention back to her. “I’m fine.”

“You need to see a doctor,” Camilla said in a tone that left no room for arguments. “You did well. Now it’s time to rest.”

She ignored the way Beruka shook her head.

“That,” Severa panted, “felt good.”

“Revenge often does,” Camilla said calmly. The icy rage in her veins had begun to ebb. “Now sit down before your adrenalin crashes or you’ll feel much worse in a minute.”

Camilla knew from firsthand experience. It was a testament to how out of it Severa must have felt that she obeyed.

Suddenly they were surrounded by everyone who had held themselves back during the fight, four different voices suddenly circling overhead.

Xander’s words registered first. “Are you alright? Camilla?”

“Is anyone hurt?” Leo asked. Corrin echoed the question, worried eyes looking further down the hall to Severa. Severa flashed them a thumbs up.

“I’m fine,” Camilla said, ignoring the exhaustion that was beginning to overtake her. “It’s Beruka who needs to be looked at.”

“I think there’s something we can use as an icepack in the freezer,” Corrin said.

Camilla’s eyes slid to silent Inigo, who looked so pale and shaken that Camilla was sure he would fall over at any minute. “You going to faint?”

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Inigo’s asked, hands shaking. Xander’s arm around his shoulders pulled him slightly closer, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You—You just slaughtered that thing! Was that… Where was that—”

_“Inigo.”_

Two voices rang out at once. One was Xander, who seemed to be trying to calm him down.

The other was Beruka.

Beruka, who sounded so serious and who initiated conversation so rarely—especially with a head injury, at that— that even Inigo fell silent to listen to her.

“Inigo,” Beruka said again, reaching out and grabbing Inigo by the collar of his shirt. Camilla frowned and kept a loose arm around Beruka’s waist to make sure she wasn’t about to collapse. “What were you saying earlier. About a cave.”

“Uh.”

Beruka’s voice was flat enough that it took Inigo a moment to register her words as a question. He looked up at Xander for guidance, but Xander seemed to be waiting for an answer as well, the only break in his patient expression the tightness around his mouth. Camilla knew he was worrying about the others just as much as she was.

Inigo blinked a few times like he was gathering his thoughts. Camilla had not forgotten Elise’s absence, and it took everything within her not to shake Inigo for taking so long to speak.

“We were in a cave,” Inigo eventually said. “Out in the woods. It was obviously manmade on the inside, you know, with the fact the walls and floor were all smooth, and also the fact there was some strange hospital room at the end of the tunnel, but—"

“But did it?” Beruka cut in. “Did it end there?”

“What? Ah—” Inigo’s eyes once again slid to the monster laying dead just beyond Beruka’s shoulder. Again, Camilla wanted to shake him, but Xander’s squeezing Inigo’s shoulders again seemed to steady him, drawing his attention back to Beruka herself. “I… don’t think so? I mean, it was hard to be sure since it was so dark and everything kind of came to a standstill when Owain—” Inigo swallowed. “I think there was another path that lead farther on, but I didn’t go down it.”

“How far did it go?” Beruka asked. Camilla silently wondered where she was going with these questions. She trusted Beruka, but perhaps it was the head injury talking for her.

Inigo shook his head. “I didn’t go down it, so I don’t know.”

“How far underground were you?” Beruka demanded.

“Ah, pretty far, I think? But again, we didn’t really have a way of knowing—"

Beruka pulled Inigo so close their faces were nearly touching. Inigo looked very startled. Beruka’s face was blank. Camilla and Xander hovered close, but something kept Camilla from pulling them apart just yet.

“But far?” Beruka asked. “Or not?”

Inigo said, “I mean—we _walked_ for a far time, yes, but I don’t know how deep—"

Beruka released him. Inigo quickly took a step back. Corrin and Leo had disappeared to check on Severa at some point, but Camilla and Xander were still watching Beruka carefully.

“What are you thinking?” Camilla asked carefully.

Beruka tried to take a shaky step towards the corpse on the floor, but Camilla grabbed her again before she could get too far.

“What do you need?” Camilla said, looking at the side of Beruka’s face while Beruka stared at some point on the ground. “I’ll get it. Just tell me what it is.”

Beruka was quiet for a moment. Camilla heard Xander and Inigo whispering something intelligible to one another.

Eventually Beruka said, “I need my hatchet.”

Camilla nodded, unquestioning. She gently released Beruka’s arm. It took a moment to find the hatchet, but she eventually found it laying under the monster’s leg. Camilla pulled it out from under the creature.

The hatchet looked beat up and a felt a little slippery from use, but it was still usable. She handed it to Beruka, who flexed her fingers around the handle. She was still staring at the floor, looking as though she was deep in thought.

Camilla waited.

Beruka turned on her heel and began walking towards the staircase. Camilla dutifully followed.

“Hey,” Severa called after them, taking Corrin’s hand and pulling herself up. “Where are you guys going?”

Beruka didn’t turn her head, but loud enough for everyone to hear, she said, “I think I know how to find them.”

Severa looked startled. Everyone did. “Wait, seriously?”

Beruka didn’t answer. There was blood in her hair and far away look in her eye. Camilla looked back at Severa with a shrug. “I’m following her.”

If it meant making her family whole again, she’d follow Beruka anywhere. Camilla trusted her. The attic monster was taken care of now, so Camilla trusted that the rest of her family was in good hands for the time being if they chose to wait where they were.

Of course none of them waited behind, however.

 

 

 

“Alright,” Niles said, taking a step back to examine the filing cabinet he and Elise had shoved in front of the door. “That should hold it.”

He shined his light around the room in search of anything else they could stack in front of the door.

After what had felt like hours walking, it had seemed an illusion to have spotted an otherwise normal looking metal door at the end of the tunnel. Now, standing in another concrete room, he had to begrudgingly admit they probably weren’t hallucinating.

Niles had almost certainly expected the door to refuse to open. But though it moved stiffly under the weight of his shoulder and the hinges squeaked something awful, the door _had_ moved. Niles, Elise, and Owain had quickly ducked inside and shut it. If Niles had doubted their awareness of being followed at all before, that doubt went out the window the moment Elise pressed her thin shoulder against the heavy looking filing cabinet that sat against the brick wall and said, “Quick! Let’s move this!” Owain had tried to join her before Niles had ordered him to sit down.

Now the door was more or less sealed for however long the filing cabinet would hold. It had taken both Niles and Elise to push it the few feet to its new resting place, and Niles would have been lying if he said he hadn’t broken a bit of a sweat doing so. It would have taken a hell of a lot of strength to open the metal door with the cabinet in the way. It was possibly more than one lone man could manage. Niles had always been a bit of a pessimist, however, so he didn’t want to test their luck.

He shined their final light—his light—around the room. Owain phones had died mere moments after Niles had warned them of the door up ahead, plunging them all into nearly absolute darkness. He had taken it as an ill omen.

Niles, who played on his phone much less than the other two and kept his regularly plugged in, had a bit more charge left on his.

But not by much.

Aside from the filing cabinet, all Niles found now were blank brick walls and dusty furniture. A thin plastic sheet here, an empty wine rack there. The floor had turned to into flat concrete rather than uneven stone, which was Niles’s first clue that something had changed.

They were definitely still underground, but Niles suspected they were closer to the surface than they had been before. He hadn’t noticed any sharp ascent while they had been walking recently, but they had been walking for a long time. It was possible they had begun to make the climb to the surface without noticing.

The first sweep around the room revealed nothing, but the second go-around revealed two things.

The first thing was that Owain had hobbled just to the edges of Niles’s light and had taken to leaning against the brick wall, plainly favoring one leg over the other. He was breathing a little more heavily than Niles would have liked and didn’t look well.

The second thing Niles found was an alcove directly across from the door they had just barricaded that contained a short set of stairs leading upward.

Now Niles considered that possibility that they had ascended without noticing to be an especially likely one, because all these clues together painted the pretty clear picture that they were in someone’s basement.

In fact, though the basement was completely unfamiliar to him, Niles was pretty sure he knew exactly where they were.

He leaned down to whisper into Elise’s ear, ignoring the way she jumped in fright like she had forgotten he was there. “Wait here for a moment, would you? I’ll be right back.”

Elise nodded dutifully, but then as Niles went to take a step closer to the stairs, Elise squeaked, “Without the light?”

That gave him pause. Elise was had a point. He had gotten so used to the darkness that he had forgotten how dark it really was in the basement, especially now that they were down to just one light. Especially to someone so unused to the dark like Elise. He peered into the far corners of the basement and was vaguely surprised to find them utterly cloaked in endless shadow.

“Here,” he said, handing Elise his phone. “Hold that for a moment.”

She took it. Niles almost went for the stairs again, but the sound of Owain's heavy breathing made him change his mind. Elise kept the light aimed on them as Niles made his way over to Owain’s side.

“You alright?” Niles asked quietly, keeping his face close to Owain’s. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine!” Owain said, blinking and lifting his chin. “Owain Dark—”

“Cut the bullshit,” Niles said. “How much does it really hurt?”

After a beat, Owain sighed. “If I could sit down for a while, I wouldn’t complain.”

The filing cabinet suddenly rattled as though something heavy had slammed against the door. Elise squeaked, and the light dipped for a moment. She quickly moved closer to them. Niles looked over at the door, and though it didn’t look ready to give way just yet, he pulled Owain’s arm around his shoulder and wrapped his own arm around Owain’s waist.

“Lean on me,” he ordered gently. “We’re not going far.”

Owain flashed him a strained smile. “I’ll go as far as you need me.”

The cabinet shuddered again. Elise said nothing, but the fear was plain on her face. Niles lead them over to the stairs.

“Wait here,” he said, helping Owain lower himself to the dirty floor. “I’m checking something out. Elise, shine the light over here.”

She did. When Niles reached the top of the stairs, he was entirely unsurprised to find a set of metal cellar doors blocking the exit.

He reached up. Just as he’d suspected, the doors were held shut, likely with the same thick padlock he had seen before.

Niles smiled grimly to himself. The one time he restrained his curiosity, and this was what it got him. He should have broken that lock earlier when he’d had the chance.

They were approximately ten or so feet below the surface, right under the house, and yet somehow they were still trapped.

Niles wondered how much good yelling would do them.

Theoretically, if the others were still in the backyard with their bonfire, they might have easily heard Niles’s banging and figured out a way to get them long before the barricaded door gave way.

Then again, if Inigo had already found the others, they might have been wandering around the woods searching for Niles, Owain, and Elise—Leo included.

So no timely rescue on that end. When he pressed his ear again the door, Niles didn’t hear any crackle of fire outside. He wasn’t sure he’d heard anything at all.

The barricaded door rattled again. Elise and Owain gasped. Niles heard the scrape of metal against concrete as the filing cabinet gave way ever so slightly under a force practically too strong to be human.

He decided yelling was worth a shot.

Just as he raised his fist to pound on the cellar doors and opened his mouth to call out, there was a second rattling above him—the sound of someone messing with the padlock.

Niles frowned. He rapped against the doors. “Hello? Is someone there?”

“Niles?” Owain said questioningly. He and Elise sat at the bottom of the steps.

“Someone’s up there,” Niles answered. Louder, he said again, “Hello?”

There were voices, Niles registered. Several. He couldn’t make out the words, but they were familiar enough that he was pretty sure he recognized them. He thought he heard Leo say his name on the other side of the doors, but he couldn’t be sure. It may have just been his own wistful thinking.

That said, there was definitely _somebody_ in the world above that could hear them. Niles knocked on the doors again and received an answering knock in reply. Elise cheered at the sound. There was some kind of scramble overhead, some more fiddling with the padlock.

“Hurry it up if you can!” he yelled through the door.

There was another rattle of the filing cabinet and some kind of muffled reply that made just as much sense as anything else Niles had heard all night. Trusting that it was out of his hands now, Niles mentally shrugged and moved to join Owain and Elise at the bottom of the steps, pretending his spine did not feel as tight as it really did.

Elise flashed the light over the barricaded door, but he couldn’t tell how well it was holding up. It looked unchanged, but he knew they had all heard it giving way slightly before. From the worried way Else glanced between the door and his phone, Niles suspected they didn’t have much flashlight time left.

He squeezed Elise’s arm as he passed and then crouched low, taking one of Owain’s hands in his own. There was another sickening scrape of metal as something large hit the barricaded door, causing the filing cabinet to shake once more. One more good shove like that, Niles thought, and he’d make sure that door stayed shut himself, light or no light.

“They’re working on it,” Niles said, despite the fact he knew both Elise and Owain had heard as much as he did. “Nice job not panicking so far, by the way.”

Owain snorted, trying to look tough. “Panic is for losers.”

“Panic is for people who aren’t going to be surgeons one day,” Elise said. Her voice was more or less steady, though there was a note of shakiness to it.

Niles smirked at them both. “Panic is for people trapped in a dusty basement with a locked door on one side and some kind of monster of a man beating down the door on the other.”

Panic was the ugly spark in Niles’s chest that he forcibly snuffed out because there were people other than himself to worry about and none of them—Niles included—had the time for it.

Neither Elise or Owain had anything to say to that. Niles supposed he’d been a bit too honest for their already grim situation.

“Hey,” he said. He squeezed Owain’s hand and gave Elise a sidelong glance. “We’re going to be fine.”

Elise took in a shaky breath to steady herself. Owain squeezed Nile’s fingers right back.

Then the ogre—whoever had been following them for the last however long they had been underground—threw themselves against the metal door _again_ , and this time the scrape of metal across concrete was so loud that Niles was up and throwing himself across the room before he knew what he was doing. His shoulder hit the filing cabinet before Elise even illuminated it with the light.

 _Oh, no you’re not_ , he thought daringly, not bothering to waste his energy by saying the words out loud.

Niles pressed his full weight against the filing cabinet. It was no less heavy than it had been when he and Elise had moved it mere moments before, and any other time Niles would have opened it up to see if there were bricks inside. Now, though, he didn’t care. He just pushed and pushed until he heard the telltale scraping against the floor that said the barricade was going back into place.

He heard a fumble behind him. Elise slammed into the cabinet beside Niles, pushing with all her might to force it back into place. Niles was easily double her size and much stronger, but he was grateful for her help. Every little bit counted. There was no space for Owain to push on the cabinet itself, but he made it to the door as swiftly as his limp would allow and pressed his body against the metal itself, pushing it shut.

Slowly, the inch-wide gap in the doorway that the “ogre,” as Niles had mentally deemed him, had forced open began to close. And Niles realized he could still see the gap despite Elise’s presence at his side, so he realized she must have leaned his phone against the wall with the flashlight aimed at the filing cabinet to keep them from being plunged into utter darkness while she helped keep the door barricaded.

The ogre slammed against the door again. Niles actually wheezed in surprise at the force of it. He swore he felt his shoes slide back against the concrete. Three of them plus the world’s heaviest filing cabinet were pressed against the rusty door, and yet the ogre had still forced them to back slightly. The thought seemed almost impossible, and yet here they were.

Well then. Locks of hair had fallen from Niles’s ponytail and into his eyes. They would just have to try harder.

“Keep pushing!” Niles ordered. There was another slam against the door, faster this time. The ogre was getting angry.

Niles didn’t let up. The door swung closed another centimeter.

“Not doing anything but!” Owain said.

Elise’s eyes were squeezed shut in fear, but that didn’t stop her from pushing as much as she could either.

The cabinet rattled.

With all the noise they were making—the rattling, their grunts, the scraping of metal against the concrete—it was impossible to hear what was happening by the cellar entrance. Niles waited for the telltale burst of light to tell him the cellar was open. He wished it would come faster.

In the back of his mind, Niles hoped—not for the first time—that Leo’s night had gone much better than theirs. And safer. Not that Niles wanted to be anywhere else in the world besides at Owain’s side in this ghastly, dangerous basement at the moment, because he couldn’t stand the thought of Owain being hurt and alone any more than he could stand the thought of Leo being in danger there with them. But if Leo had experienced something just as awful tonight, and Niles hadn’t been there to protect him…

Well, if the worst thing Niles received after this was a scolding from a worried but otherwise unharmed Leo, Niles would gladly take it.

“If we make it out of here,” Owain said as they strained to hold the door closed. “I’m going to marry you and Leo both!”

Elise made a happy noise. Then a strangled one. “If!”

“When!” Owain corrected.

“You picked quite a time to decide that,” Niles grit out, getting knocked backwards slightly as the ogre hit the door again. “You drama queen.”

He didn’t look over to check, but he imagined the lopsided grin on Owain’s face quite clearly.

“What can I say?”

“Bold of you to presume we’d say yes,” Niles added.

“Oh, don’t even start,” Owain said.

“Guys!” Elise yelled.

The cellar doors flew open with a clatter. It felt like an eternity had passed since they’d thrown themselves against the filing cabinet. There was no dramatic burst of sunlight, no orange glow of a fire illuminating the basement, but there were several more beams of light suddenly aimed in their direction, which Niles nearly appreciated as much as the sudden relief that threaded his veins.

Leo’s voiced rang out. “Niles! Elise!”

“Owain!” Inigo yelled. Other voices joined in the cacophony. It sounded as if everyone was topside.

The barricaded door rattled almost constantly now, whatever being that was on the other side frustrated and frenzied at the sound of their voices and its inability to break through. Niles wasn’t sure how much longer they could hold the door shut. He prepared himself for the worst. Any progress they had made before in keeping the door closed had halted now, and it took all of their combined strength just to keep the filing cabinet from toppling over, crushing them in an instant.

“Owain!” Niles said loud enough to be heard over the constant banging. “You go first!”

Owain grunted. “What? No way!”

“Elise!” That was Camilla’s voice. She sounded strangely close. He heard other familiar indistinct voices, but he didn’t risk splitting his attention to look. “Is something else there? Let us help!”

“We’re trying to keep it out!” Elise shouted back. Niles didn’t miss her use of “it.”

“Stay out of the way,” Niles said. “Everybody, stay out!” Only so many people could hold the door shut at once, and Niles wanted out of this blasted basement once and for all. A crowd could be a dangerous thing. He said again, “Owain, go!”

Niles caught a flash of blond hair in the corner of his eye as Owain shook his head. “I won’t leave you—”

“You’re hurt!” Elise and Niles both scolded him at once. In a tone that held no room for arguments, Niles added, “Elise, watch him. Go as soon as he’s out.”

Elise, thankfully, didn’t argue. She flipped over so she could press her back against the filing cabinet instead of her shoulder and eyed the exit. “Xander!”

Niles didn’t look. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the growing crack in the door. He willed it not to grow any larger.

“Owain, now!”

Owain made an unhappy sound but did as he was told. He ran.

He was fairly swift for a man whose ankle must have swollen to the size of a balloon by now, but sheer determination couldn’t save his coordination. Halfway across the basement floor, Niles heard Owain stumble, and the pained grunt of Owain hitting the floor was nearly enough to make Niles look. But then he heard someone else helping Owain to his feet.

“Holy shit,” Inigo said. Niles heard a scramble of feet against the concrete. “Is that what I think it is on the other side of that door?”

“You tell me,” Owain gasped. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

Inigo hesitated. “Let’s save the chitchat for later.”

Niles heard the creak of the stairs as they began the climb up. He heard Xander asking about himself and Elise. He heard Leo’s hiss of sympathy and relief as Owain must have emerged to the surface.

Niles registered all this, and he told Elise, “Go!”

Elise hesitated. “What about you?”

Another hard pound against the door nearly threw her off her feet. The door slid open another solid inch. Niles swore he saw meaty fingers wiggling in the gap.

“Don’t argue with me!” he said sternly as Xander and Camilla both shouted, _“Elise!”_

Leo’s voice overlapped theirs. “You both better get up here right now, or I’m coming to get you!”

“I’m _trying_ , dear!” Niles called back. He shot Elise a look.

Elise pressed her lips together tightly and ran. Truthfully, Niles hadn’t thought she’d been doing much to hold the door shut before, but he noted the sudden absence of her strength quite badly when another slam nearly caused him to bite his tongue.

Elise ran much faster than Owain, he noted gratefully.

“Niles!” Leo shouted. “Come on!”

He didn’t need to be told a third time.

Niles abandoned his post and ran. He didn’t bother searching for his phone. He valued his life much more, and it had probably died somewhere in the darkness without his notice anyway. The three fresh beams of light that awaited him at the top of the squat staircase were more than enough to light his path to freedom.

He made it approximately halfway across the room when the groaning of door’s hinges turned positively explosive as the filing cabinet crashed to the floor behind him. Niles knew whoever had been on the other side of the basement door now had a straight line of sight to grab him.

He didn’t look back. Niles practically rocketed up the staircase, every nerve in his body on fire and hyperaware of the ogre hot on his heels. He swore he felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

Two steps away from freedom, Niles reached out and took both Leo and Camilla’s outstretched hands. The pulled him clear of the cellar doors in a surprising burst of strength. A blast of warm night air hit him square in the face.

As did the large slab of stone Corrin had hefted over their head. Nearly.

Niles vaguely recognized it as one of the larger rocks they had meant to use for the fire pit.

“Sh—”

He didn’t have time to finish his swear before a mouthful of grass muffled the rest of his words. He had made a quick dive into the yard just in time to avoid getting his skull bashed in. A clang rang out from the cellar as the stone came in contact with something metal, and something bigger went tumbling back down the steps. Niles hoped it was painful.

He flipped over onto his back just in time to catch Beruka throwing the cellar doors shut behind him. She deftly shoved a thick wooden pole between the handles on the cellar doors to bar them. Despite the fact it was made of wood and not nearly as sturdy looking as the filing cabinet had been, Niles hoped the pole would hold the ogre off for longer, especially considering the padlock that had once held the cellar shut now lay broken at Beruka’s feet. The remnants of the lock were strangely accompanied by a pair of wrenches Niles vaguely recognized as belonging to the toolbox that usually sat in the back of Camilla’s car.

Niles knew how to pick a lock, not literally break them. That usually took way more energy than any one lock was worth. He made a mental note to ask Beruka about how she’d done it later.

He took a quick stock of everyone’s dark shadows in the yard and found everyone accounted for, minus Severa. His good eye automatically found its way to Elise, who had wrapped herself around Camilla like a cobra. Camilla gently petted Elise’s hair and whispering something soothing to her sister, her face soft.

Elise was shaking. Niles realized she had finally burst into belated tears.

 _She probably deserves it_ , Niles thought. They probably all did. He didn’t feel like crying though. He just felt drained. He began to look for at the others.

Then he had a face full of Leo and Owain.

Mostly it was Leo, who had thrown himself onto Niles’s chest and buried his face in Niles’s collar very suddenly. Niles let out a small “oof” at Leo’s sudden weight, but truthfully, he couldn’t complain. It felt good to wrap his arms around Leo’s torso in a loose hug.

In between bouts of worrying about Owain, Niles worried about his bookworm all night as well. But here Leo was, safe and sound.

Owain did not join them on the grass despite his sore leg—or perhaps because of it—but he did bend over at the waist and blocked out Niles’s view of the night sky in favor of an upside down view of Owain’s face. The others were murmuring among themselves, but Niles only had eyes for his two blonds.

“Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?” Leo snapped, his voice somewhat muffled by the skin of Niles’s shoulder. Then he sniffed wetly.

Niles blew air out of his mouth. Above them, shaped in a halo around Owain’s head, the stars were shining.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said fondly. Exhaustion began to settle into his bones.

Leo placed a wet kiss against his chin. “We have a lot to catch up on this evening.”

Niles eyed him. There was a tightness around Leo’s eyes that Niles wasn’t entirely sure he’d put there himself.

“What kind of evening have _you_ had?” he asked. He was very tired of thinking about his own.

Leo kissed him again.

“We both owe each other a story,” he said.

“Hey,” Owain cut in good-naturedly. “What happened to my kisses?”

Leo lifted his head. “Owain, you know for a fact that I—”

He cut himself off, his eyes transfixed on something else. Niles tilted his head back and followed Leo’s gaze until he found Owain’s ankle mere inches from his head. Even under the shroud of night, Niles could see the blood that had soaked through Owain’s bandages.

“You should have let me carry you sooner,” Niles said, frowning and pushing Leo away so he could stand.

Leo let him. He rose to his feet looking equally unhappy.

“Didn’t Inigo say something about a _bear trap_?” Leo said. “Have you been running around on that all night?”

“It’s not like we had a choice!” Owain defended, his hands raised. He took a step back and winced as he was forced to put weight on his bad leg. “Okay, yeah, fine. Maybe I should sit down.”

“Come here,” Niles said. He was tired but not so tired that he couldn’t carry Owain into the house. Or better yet, to the car so they could get the hell out of here. Owain didn’t complain as Niles corralled him into a piggyback, which was a testament to how bad he must have felt. Leo didn’t look as pleased, however.

“I can take him,” Leo said, hovering closely. “You’ve both had a bad night.”

Niles shook his head. He could see the backdoor from here. “It’s fine.”

“You don’t even have to take me that far,” Owain said, sounding more subdued than his normal self. “Just… set me down on the couch or something.”

As much as Niles would have preferred to steal several moments more with Leo and Owain, Owain’s injury reminded him that there were more pressing matters at hand. With a meaningful gesture to the cellar doors, he asked, “Is that going to hold?”

He hadn’t heard any movement stirring in the cellar yet, but that didn’t mean much.

Beruka shrugged. Camilla answered for her, her fingers still tangled in Elise’s long hair. “It doesn’t matter. We’re getting out of here.”

“We are?” Niles raised an eyebrow. He had no complaints, but it sounded like the others had an eventful night for sure.

Owain muttered into his hair, “We’re leaving?”

“We’re getting out of here,” Corrina agreed, breaking off from Xander and Inigo’s sides. “Severa went to get the cars ready. Come on, we should go see her.”

There was a faint thump from the cellar.

Everyone looked at one another. Camilla, with Elise in her chest and Beruka leaning a little too close into her personal space at her side. Niles, who was beginning to feel the weight of Owain on his back and was secretly debating the merits of giving Owain over to the ever-hovering Leo. Corrin, with Inigo and Xander on either side of them, who gazed at everyone with worry filled eyes. For a moment, they were all silent. There was not another sound from the cellar.

Then Inigo said, “Yeah, let’s leave,” and they all made their way around the side of the house.

 

 

 

“Xander—” Inigo began, but then he stopped like he couldn’t find the words to say. Or maybe they just wouldn’t come out of his mouth. They were walking with the others back to the cars, and his voice was nearly lost under the soft crunch of dry grass underfoot.

“It’s alright,” Xander said, even though it wasn’t. He had his hand on Inigo’s lower back, his hands having never left Inigo’s body ever since the Beruka and Inigo’s confrontation on the second floor, and that made things somewhere close to alright. At least somewhat. “Don’t worry. We’re almost home.”

They were far from home, actually. But he still didn’t want Inigo to worry. Even before the monsters and the woods, all Inigo had done for days was worry, and Xander had been nearly sick with it, plus the guilt.

 _Xander_ had caused this mess. Or he’d at least been one of the targets of it. Inigo didn’t share his blood. He’d never even met Xander’s father. So Xander would be the one to fix it, one way or another. He’d make them all safe again. Inigo shouldn’t have had to worry anymore.

Inigo breathed in. Xander felt him.

“Alright,” Inigo said, looking sorry and sappy all at once. “Let’s go home.”

Xander pulled him closer.

 

 

 

Severa, it seemed, had been busy in the few minutes between Camilla sliding her the car keys and when the group met up with her again.

Corrin was too busy helping a still shaking Elise into the car to chat, but they could hear Severa talking with the others through the open car door. Corrin grasped Elise’s hand firmly while they listened. Leo was fussing over Owain and Niles at the other car, and though they were only a few feet away, Corrin didn’t like feeling like they were so distant. They paid more attention to Severa and the others, however, since that seemed like the more important conversation.

“You’re wonderful,” Camilla crooned after Severa revealed she’d thrown as much of everyone’s stuff in the back of the cars as she could find in two minutes. Silently, Corrin agreed. “Truly, you and Beruka never fail to impress. You have both gone above and beyond tonight.”

A quick glance toward the back of Camilla’s car revealed the suitcases Corrin and the others had all dragged into the house not a even day ago. A few of the suitcases looked decidedly less bulky than they had before, but Corrin was a little more impressed with the fact Severa had taken the time to find everyone’s suitcases at all.

“Yeah, well.” Severa sounded boastful and flattered. “It just made sense to grab our stuff while you were busy. It doesn’t take ten people to open a door.”

Really, it had just taken one person—Beruka—but Corrin was still impressed with the fact Severa had trusted them all to take care of the others and had run around on her own with monsters roaming about anyway. Calling Severa impressive before hadn’t been an exaggeration in the slightest.

Corrin was mostly listening, glancing about the yard to keep an eye on everyone and make sure no monsters came creeping out of the tall grass while they listened to Severa’s conversation. They managed to glance back over just in time to catch Camilla pushing a loose lock of hair behind Severa’s ear.

“I don’t mean just about the luggage, dear,” Camilla said, almost too soft for Corrin to hear.

Severa’s shoulders began to sag with affection. Then she looked over and caught Corrin’s eye. A little embarrassed at being caught, Corrin flashed her a smile and a quick wave. Severa straightened with a deep breath.

“Yeah, well,” Severa said again, a little less boastful. “You were pretty phenomenal too, you know.”

Beruka, who had already busied one hand with Camilla, reached out and occupied the other by grabbing one of Severa’s hands as well. She didn’t say anything, but she was giving Camilla and Severa looks that spoke volumes.

Corrin openly gaped. They knew Beruka loved Camilla and Severa, but they had almost never _seen_ it. Aside from tonight and the tremendous moments where Beruka had been on the frontlines to protect Severa and Camilla at every turn, Beruka being the one to initiate their hand holding was the most impressive thing Corrin would probably see in their entire life.

It was a private moment. Corrin forced themselves to look away.

There had been no sign of the last creature breaking free of the basement just yet—assuming Severa’s theory held up and that was the third of three abominations after all—but Corrin took quick stock of everyone one last time anyway. Leo was still fussing over Niles and Owain in the other car, though he looked a little calmer now. After a kiss on the forehead from Xander, Inigo began making his way over to the trio, having apparently finished their quiet conversation for the moment.

It was slowly dawning on Corrin that a long, awful night had stretched out before them, and they had made it through, every one of them. And they loved each other so much.

Corrin thought they might just join Elise in crying.

“Elise,” Corrin said absently, continuing to brush their thumb over the back of Elise’s hands soothingly. “We have the _best_ family.”

Through her slowing tears, a laugh bubbled up out of Elise’s mouth. “I know!”

Corrin had nearly turned their attention away from Camilla and her girlfriends completely when Xander’s approach drew them apart. As one, Severa, Beruka, and Camilla took the two steps down the front porch to meet Xander on the grass.

“We should get out of here as soon as possible,” Xander said, sounding weary. Corrin could see him eying both the cars, taking stock of everyone who was waiting for them to drive off already. “But what are we going to do about that other creature?”

None of them had suggested staying in the house for the second or third nights. Fuck whatever inheritance they could have gotten, Camilla and Xander’s body language screamed. They had never wanted it in the first place. Corrin thought they, Elise, and Leo were inclined to agree.

“What about it?” Camilla asked coolly, her expression light.

Xander gave her a look. “We cannot simply leave it here. It will make its way out of the basement eventually, either through breaking the cellar doors or by backtracking its way back out into the woods.”

“So?” Severa said. “That’s not our problem.”

Corrin… wasn’t sure they agreed with that.

It was their father who had made those monsters, apparently, and that fact was still a bit mind boggling. But it was, apparently, a fact. Garon had made them. Didn’t that that mean the burden of their existence fell onto the rest of his family to dispose of? Only days ago Leo bemoaned the fact they had to take care of Garon’s affairs now that he was gone.

 _Do we have to?_ Corrin had asked, unhappy at the sight of their brother so discontent.

Leo had smiled grimly. _Yes_ , his expression had seemed to say.

Wasn’t this just… one last affair to take care of? Corrin wondered. Wasn’t this the awful but real inheritance all along?

Or maybe not, if the expression on Severa’s face was any indication.

“Severa—” Xander began.

Severa swept her arm around the yard. “Look around! Nobody lives anywhere _near_ here! Not for miles!”

Xander pinched the bridge of his nose. Beruka and Camilla seemed to be watching them go back and forth with distant interest.

“Even so, that does not mean we can simply leave it here to roam free,” Xander argued. “It could go too far and hurt someone.”

“Like it has been?” Severa countered. “How long have those things been wandering around? Months? _Years_? Even if one of them was locked up the whole time, that means the other two have been walking around free since the start. If they’d hurt somebody already, we’d have heard about it. Grisly murders in the country! Monster attack! The works.”

Somehow, Xander’s expression grew even more pinched.

“That does not mean it couldn’t happen,” he said. “And we might not have heard about it if—"

“We would have heard about it,” Severa said with certainty. “Look, your dad said you guys _had_ to come here, right? He didn’t take them into the city. He needed _you_ to come _here_. Clearly he wanted you to find them! And maybe they have a territory or something! Maybe they _had_ to be here!”

“Maybe they _don’t_ ,” Xander snapped. Things were growing heated, and Corrin was growing uncomfortable. “We don’t know anything about how long they’ve been here. Do you really want to be responsible for somebody’s death because we didn’t do anything?”

“No!” Severa shouted. “Not even yours!”

Xander and Severa stared at each other, their eyes locked. Corrin felt their breath caught in their throat. Elise squeezed their hand. It felt as though time had gone still.

Corrin looked at Severa. Really looked at her. At the dark stains on her shirt and pants. At the tiredness under her eyes and her steel spine. At the way she had bent and bent and bent tonight but hadn’t snapped. Or had glued herself back together so carefully that if she had, Corrin couldn’t see her edges anymore.

They looked at Camilla and the blood that wasn’t hers on her chin. At Beruka’s ruffled clothes and the matted spot in her hair that still needed to be looked at. At Xander’s tense shoulders and clenched fists.

Corrin glanced to the side. The occupants of the other car seemed to have frozen as well.

Camilla let go of Beruka’s hand to gently touch Xander’s shoulder. Xander let out a long, shuddering breath. Beruka moved closer to Severa.

Camilla said something too quiet for Corrin to catch.

Xander looked tired when he asked, “Then what do you suggest we do?”

“Burn it,” Severa said simply.

Xander faltered.

“Excuse me?”

Camilla and Beruka looked slightly more interested as well. Corrin sat up in their seat. Elise had grown quiet.

“Burn it,” Severa said again. “There are lighters in the kitchen. Let’s take the whole thing down.”

Camilla and Beruka shared a look. Beruka made no move to agree or disagree. Camilla shrugged.

“I have no love for this place,” she said.

Xander looked tempted, but he didn’t give in immediately. “And what would that accomplish?”

“Getting rid of the bodies, for one thing,” Severa answered.

Xander shook his head, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “The police will need the evidence—”

“Then _lie_ ,” Severa said. With her fervor, Corrin couldn’t tell if this was a plan she’d thought about before or one she was coming up with on the spot. “This place is old. It’s practically a tinderbox. It’ll go up in flames, but bones don’t burn. Evidence of those things will still exist in the ashes, and when the police come searching, they’ll _have_ to investigate the property even more if they think it’s a murder. If that third creatures makes it out, they’ll probably find it too.”

“Where does the lie come in?” Camilla asked. Corrin wondered that too. She could only imagine the endless questions they’d have to face if anybody found out they set their own house on fire.

“Arson,” Severa said with another heavy shrug. “We say we were never here. Somebody else did it. Probably trying to cover up your dad’s tracks with his freaky experiments. An accomplice or something.”

“We can’t—” Xander began.

Beruka said, “How will we explain Owain’s injuries?”

The first stop they had to make as soon as they were far enough away would be to a hospital, after all.

Severa shook her head. “Like Inigo said, there was an illegal bear trap. We were driving out here and decided to stop early. We took a hike. Owain had an accident. The rest of us spent the day trying to help him out of it. We had no cell service. Some of us tripped into a ditch on the way back. It took a long time to get back to the cars. End of story.”

She made it sound so simple. Corrin couldn’t see how a story like that would hold up under much scrutiny. Corrin personally couldn’t lie to save their life. Something would give them away, somehow. Somebody would know they’d made it to the house.

But it seemed Severa had accounted for that.

“Look, just don’t accept any insurance or anything,” Severa said, her voice nearing pleading. “It’s not illegal if it’s your own house, right? If you don’t take the money for it? Didn’t your dad leave this place to you? It’s just the rest of his assets that you’d get if you stayed here for three nights. It’s not illegal to burn down _your own_ house.”

Corrin still wasn’t sure about that. They didn’t know the first thing about technicalities in the law. But they were so very tired.

“That’s not how it works,” Xander said, but Corrin could see his face. He looked very tempted. “It’s a danger to the surrounding area.”

Severa threw her hands up. “The surrounding area is also yours! You own all this! Just say we never made it here and be done with it!”

“I have no problems with it,” Camilla said. “Granted, there will probably be _many_ problems that arise with this, but we’ll deal with those as they come.”

Xander sighed, pressing his face into his hands. Corrin saw movement in the other car. Inigo looked tempted to get out, but Owain’s hand on his shoulder held him back.

“Just don’t claim any insurance on the place,” Severa said again. “You’re not doing anything illegal if you’re not trying to get money out of it! What are they going to do, charge you for burning without a permit? That’s kid stuff!”

Beruka said, “They could charge us for covering up his late father’s illegal activity and obstruction of justice.”

Severa frowned. “Whose side are you on?”

“Let’s take a vote then, shall we?” Camilla drawled. Raising her voice, she called out across the lawn. “Leo! Do you have any objections to burning down the house?”

Leo gave a thumbs up out the window.

That was enough for Camilla. Severa looked pleased with herself.

For a moment, Xander said nothing. With his face hidden in his hands, all Corrin could see was the way his shoulders shook. Corrin’s stomach filled with lead.

Then they realized Xander was laughing.

Xander raised his head, his mouth open in a smile that showed all his teeth. Impossibly, Corrin stared even harder.

“The lighter was in the kitchen, you said?” he asked.

Severa cheered.

Corrin wasn’t entirely sure how they felt about burning down the house or the rest of the plan. A part of them thought they might have been a little sad to the house go, just for the memory of what could have been. Another part of them was worried about the many, _many_ holes in their story that there would be if they didn’t sort everything out before they took Owain to the hospital.

The rest of Corrin felt solid about the fact that if all of her family was on board with this, they were probably going to be just fine in the long run.

Especially with the fact Leo was studying law. There was nobody Corrin trusted more to find a loophole or handle the legality of their upcoming crime than Leo. Or at least to lie better than Corrin could about their whereabouts at the time of the arson.

“Corrin,” Elise whimpered, drawing their attention away from the group and to their red-eyed sister. “You—You won’t ever leave, right? Not… Not like—”

 _Not like Father_ , Corrin finished.

“Of course not,” Corrin said as soothingly as they could. Xander, Severa, and Beruka had disappeared into the house. Camilla leaned against the porch, looking out at all of them protectively, but now Corrin only had eyes for Elise.

Corrin smiled at Elise as widely as they could. It took a lot of energy to smile, especially after a night like tonight and the knowledge they really needed to hurry up if they wanted to get the heck out of dodge before the last monster doubled back through the woods to get them. But it felt good to smile too.

“I promise,” Corrin said with finality. “I won’t ever leave you.”

It might have seemed a naïve promise to make to anybody else, but Corrin fully intended to keep it.

Family was the most important thing, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Depictions of Violence Involving Knives/Stabbing, Blood, Monster Death, Mentions of Character Injury, A Character Briefly Going Into Shock, Being Trapped Underground (not permanent/not a cave-in), Leg Injury (continuing from the last chapter), and Discussions of Arson.
> 
> If you're curious about what Beruka did to that lock, it was something like [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=1jJP0CcuJyE)
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I worked really hard on this fic, so comments are appreciated! I also get a lot of FE14 meta and fic related asks on my tumblr, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" tag for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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